["python","logging","python-logging"]
Logging setLevel is being ignored

The below code is copied from the documentation. I am supposed to be able to see all the info logs. But I don't. I am only able to see the warn and above even though I've set setLevel to INFO. Why is this happening? foo.py: import logging logger = logging.getLogger(__name__) logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) logger.debug('debug message') logger.info('info message') logger.warn('warn message') logger.error('error message') logger.critical('critical message') Output: workingDirectory$ python foo.py warn message error message critical message Where did the info and debug messages go??
As pointed by some users, using: logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG, format='%(message)s') like written in the accepted answer is not a good option because it sets the log level for the root logger, so it may lead to unexpected behaviours (eg. third party libraries may start to log debug messages if you set loglevel=logging.DEBUG) In my opinion the best solution is to set log level just for your logger, like this: import logging logger = logging.getLogger('MyLogger') handler = logging.StreamHandler() formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s') handler.setFormatter(formatter) logger.addHandler(handler) logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) Not really intuitive solution, but is necessary if you want to set log level only for 'MyLogger' and leave the root logger untouched. So, why is logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG, format='%(message)s') setting the log level globally? Well, actually it doesn't. As said, it's just changing the configuration of the root logger and, as described in the python documentation: Loggers should NEVER be instantiated directly, but always through the module-level function logging.getLogger(name). Multiple calls to getLogger() with the same name will always return a reference to the same Logger object. So, logging.basicConfig is creating a StreamHandler with a default Formatter and adding it to the root logger. The point is that if any other library is using the "root logger", you're going to set that log level for that library too so it can happen that you start to see debug logs from third party libraries. This is why I think it's better to create your own logger and set your own formatters and handlers, so you can leave the root logger untouched.