clink.log is not deleted when Cmder injects Clink

[mariograz]

I know there is a --nolog arguement, is it possible to add a "log=0" in the settings file to disable logging?

[chrisant996]

It might be.

Can you describe the motivation behind the request?

What problem is caused by logging, that makes it desirable to permanently disable logging?

[chrisant996]

@mariograz Can you describe the motivation behind the request? What problem is caused by logging?

[mariograz]

Sorry It took so long to get back to you, I was unexpectedly away.

I use cmder, and they've recently integrated this clink fork. I don't have a need for logging especially since things are working great.

While the current log file doesn't seem to grow large all that fast, it's just another log file that will need to be managed.

I think it makes more sense to make logging disabled by default, and if its needed it can be turned on.

As a work around, I tried to use the --nolog argument, but I'm unable to grok where cmder calls clink.

I'm also not looking to make a bunch of work for anyone.

[chrisant996]

The log gets deleted and recreated -- its growth is not unbounded. It doesn't seem to need to be "managed".

I much prefer it to be on always, so that when there's a problem, I can simply say "run clink info to find the log file and attach it". I have to think about the cost to me, for supporting Clink, and having logging always enabled reduces my personal cost of maintaining Clink.

[mariograz]

My log file doesn't seem to be deleted & recreated when I close the shell. It seems to grows about 10-20k every time I execute cmder. Is there a different interval that I should expect it to be refreshed?

This might not be your issue, it could just be a cmder issue.

I agree with you to have it always on, that definitely would help with support requests.

[chrisant996]

clink inject tries to delete the log file each time. So that if no other Clink instances are running, the log gets deleted/created anew. If any Clink instances are already using the log file, then deletion will fail.
(Edit: I misspoke -- it always deletes the log file on every inject, even if another Clink is using it.)

Could it be that there is another Clink instance running? If you reboot the computer and start a new Clink session, does that start the log file over fresh?

[mariograz]

I've restarted the PC & then deleted the existing log file (clink.log). then I ran cmder twice, closing it fully between runs and making sure there were no cmd or clink instances in the process window.

It does not look like the file was deleted, or attempted to be deleted between executions.
I've attached the log file here-
clink.log

[mariograz]

Ok- So I might have wasted your time somewhat. I used procmon.exe to see what was happening, and I noticed that when clink.exe tried to access clink.log the API result was REPARSE.
That reminded me that I keep the cmder configuration directory (Which contains the clink.log file) in a hardlinked location. I believe this is causing *odd behavior with the logfile recreation api call.

I'm sorry about that.

[chrisant996]

Aha! It isn't the hardlink.

Cmder overrides the default Clink profile directory.
clink inject builds an application context to inject into cmd.exe, using the overridden profile directory.
However, when clink inject deletes the clink.log file, it uses its own application context by mistake -- it should have used the injected application context for that particular operation.

Thanks for discovering and reporting this!