syslog best practices -- when to call closelog?

[J Rice]

I have a question:

When should syslog.closelog () be called? I have a daemon that spends
most of its time asleep and quiet, but writes messages to the mail log
when active. Should I open the log at the start and keep it open until
the program closes? This seems much simpler than issuing three
commands everytime I want to write to the log.

The program will essentially be running constantly. Is having the log
constantly "open" a problem? What happens if the program crashes or is
killed without a closelog()?

Jeff

[Cameron Laird]

Re: syslog best practices -- when to call closelog?

In article <1152568999.765 845.150940@b28g 2000cwb.googleg roups.com>,
J Rice <rice.jeffrey@g mail.comwrote:

>
>I have a question:
>
>When should syslog.closelog () be called? I have a daemon that spends
>most of its time asleep and quiet, but writes messages to the mail log
>when active. Should I open the log at the start and keep it open until
>the program closes? This seems much simpler than issuing three
>commands everytime I want to write to the log.
>
>The program will essentially be running constantly. Is having the log
>constantly "open" a problem? What happens if the program crashes or is
>killed without a closelog()?
>
>Jeff
>

In your terms, it's entirely safe to leave open the handle to syslog.
The operating system takes responsibility for cleanup on shutdown of
your application.