Is there a way to avoid segfault from using macros without creating a logger?

[Monstermel]

I am writing some tests for a component that emit some logs. I am not interested in the logs for the test.
I have a global logger which I init with: quill::Backend::start() -> create_or_get_logger(...), I would like to avoid those calls in the test. Is there a way to avoid that without creating some custom logging macros? Currently I am using v10.0.1

[odygrd]

Hey, If you don’t care about log output in your tests, there are a few clean ways to avoid the logging overhead

Option 1 (Recommended): Initialize the logger, but don’t start the backend

You can keep your existing logging calls, create the logger with create_or_get_logger(...) but simply never call quill::Backend::start() / quill::Backend::stop()

As long as your test doesn’t enqueue more than ~2 GB of logs (which is extremely unlikely), this is perfectly safe.

Library is explicitly designed to handle this case:

your code can still push log records into the queue, but since the backend thread never starts, the records are never processed. This completely avoids backend startup/shutdown cost while keeping your production code unchanged.

Option 2: Compile logs out entirely for tests

If you want zero logging code generated, you can raise the compile-time log level for your test target.

In your test .cpp, before including any Quill headers:

#define QUILL_COMPILE_ACTIVE_LOG_LEVEL QUILL_COMPILE_ACTIVE_LOG_LEVEL_CRITICAL + 1

#include "quill/LogMacros.h"

Or, via CMake with target_compile_definitions

This removes all logging statements at compile time for that target.

Option 3: Use a nullptr logger (LogFunctions only – not released yet - slower by default)

If you’re using the macro-free LogFunctions API, you can pass a nullptr logger to silently ignore logging calls.

https://github.com/odygrd/quill/blob/master/examples/console_logging_macro_free.cpp

quill/include/quill/LogFunctions.h

Line 328 in 88c9d6b

if (QUILL_UNLIKELY(!logger))

[Monstermel]

Thank you!