Tie::Syslog =========== Copyright (c) 2000 Broc Seib. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. Broc Seib, bseib@vyking.com SYNOPSIS ======== use Tie::Syslog; tie *MYLOG, 'Tie::Syslog', 'local0.error', 'my_program', 'pid'; print MYLOG "I made an error."; ## this will be syslogged printf MYLOG "Error %d", 42; ## syslog as "Error 42" untie *MYLOG; DESCRIPTION =========== This module allows you to tie a filehandle (output only) to syslog. This becomes useful in general when you want to capture any activity that happens on STDERR and see that it is syslogged for later perusal. You can also create an arbitrary filehandle, say LOG, and send stuff to syslog by printing to this filehandle. This module depends on the Sys::Syslog module to actually get info to syslog. When used with STDERR, combined with the good habit of using the perl -w switch, this module happens to be useful in catching unexpected errors in any of your code, or team's code. Tie::Syslog is pretty brain-dead. However, it can become quite flexible if you investigate your options with the actual syslog daemon. Syslog has a variety of options available, including notifying console, logging to other machines running syslog, or email support in the event of Bad Things. Consult your syslog documentation to get /etc/syslog.conf setup by your sysadmin and use Tie::Syslog to get information into those channels. INSTALLATION ============ To install this package, change to the directory where you unarchived this distribution and type the following: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install Note that the 'make test' cannot really verify that anything is going to syslog, because this depends on your local syslog setup. Please refer to your syslog documentation. If you do not have root access on your machine, then you may not have the ability to install this module in the standard perl library path. You may direct the installation into your own space, e.g., perl Makefile.PL LIB='/home/your_login/lib' or perhaps the entire installation, e.g., perl Makefile.PL PREFIX='/home/your_login' If you make the installation into your own directory, then remember that you must tell perl where to search for modules before trying to 'use' them. For example: use lib '/home/your_login/lib'; use Tie::Syslog; The most current version of this module should be available at your favorite CPAN site, or may be retrieved from http://vyking.com/CPAN/ Please let me know if you are using this module. Tell me what bugs you find or what can be done to improve it.