## Motivation
In order to implement "out of band" `Subscriber` APIs in third-party
subscriber implementations (see [this comment]) users may want to
downcast the current `Dispatch` to a concrete subscriber type.
For example, in a library for integrating `tokio-trace` with a fancy new
(hypothetical) distributed tracing technology "ElizaTracing", which uses
256-bit span IDs, we might expect to see a function like this:
```rust
pub fn correlate(tt: tokio_trace::span::Id, et: elizatracing::SpanId) {
tokio_trace::dispatcher::with(|c| {
if let Some(s) = c.downcast_ref::<elizatracing::Subscriber>() {
s.do_elizatracing_correlation_magic(tt, et);
}
});
}
```
This allows users to correlate `tokio-trace` IDs with IDs in the
distributed tracing system without having to pass a special handle to
the subscriber through application code (as one is already present in
thread-local storage, but with its type erased).
## Solution
This branch makes the following changes:
* Add an object-safe `downcast_raw` method to the `Subscriber` trait,
taking a `TypeId` and returning an `*const ()` if the type ID
matches the subscriber's type ID, or `None` if it does not, and
* Add `is<T>` and `downcast_ref<T>` functions to `Subscriber`
and `Dispatch`, using `downcast_raw`.
Unlike the approach implemented in #950, the `downcast_raw` method is
object-safe, since it takes a `TypeId` rather than a type _parameter_
and returns a void pointer rather than an `&T`. This means that
`Subscriber` implementations can override this method if necessary. For
example, a `Subscriber` that fans out to multiple component subscribers
can downcast to their component parts, and "chained" or "middleware"
subscribers, which wrap an inner `Subscriber` and modify its behaviour
somehow, can downcast to the inner type if they choose to.
[this comment]: https://github.com/tokio-rs/tokio/issues/932#issuecomment-469473501
[`std::error::Error`'s]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.33.0/src/std/error.rs.html#204
Refs: #950, #953, https://github.com/tokio-rs/tokio/issues/948#issuecomment-469444293
Signed-off-by: Eliza Weisman <eliza@buoyant.io>
This branch changes the `Subscriber::record` method to take a new
arguments struct, `span::Record`. The `field::Record` trait was renamed
to `field::Visit` to prevent name conflicts.
In addition, the `ValueSet::is_empty`, `ValueSet::contains`, and
`ValueSet::record` methods were made crate-private, as they are exposed
on the `Attributes` and `Record` types.
Signed-off-by: Eliza Weisman <elzia@buoyant.io>
This branch allows users of `tokio-trace` to explicitly set a span's
parent, or indicate that a span should be a new root of its own trace
tree. A `parent: ` key has been added to the `span!` macros. When a span
is provided, that span will be set as the parent, while `parent: None`
will result in a new root span. No `parent:` key results in the current
behaviour.
A new type, `span::Attributes`, was added to `tokio-trace-core` to act
as an arguments struct for the `Subscriber::new_span` method. This will
allow future fields to be added without causing breaking API changes.
The `Attributes` struct currently contains the new span's metadata,
`ValueSet`, and parent.
Finally, the `span::Span` type in `-core` was renamed to `span::Id`, for
consistency with `tokio-trace` and to differentiate it from
`span::Attributes`. This name was chosen primarily due to precedent in
other tracing systems.
Closes#920
Signed-off-by: Eliza Weisman <eliza@buoyant.io>
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## Motivation
In asynchronous systems like Tokio, interpreting traditional log
messages can often be quite challenging. Since individual tasks are
multiplexed on the same thread, associated events and log lines are
intermixed making it difficult to trace the logic flow. Currently, none
of the available logging frameworks or libraries in Rust offer the
ability to trace logical paths through a futures-based program.
There also are complementary goals that can be accomplished with such a
system. For example, metrics / instrumentation can be tracked by
observing emitted events, or trace data can be exported to a distributed
tracing or event processing system.
In addition, it can often be useful to generate this diagnostic data in
a structured manner that can be consumed programmatically. While prior
art for structured logging in Rust exists, it is not currently
standardized, and is not "Tokio-friendly".
## Solution
This branch adds a new library to the tokio project, `tokio-trace`.
`tokio-trace` expands upon logging-style diagnostics by allowing
libraries and applications to record structured events with additional
information about *temporality* and *causality* --- unlike a log
message, a span in `tokio-trace` has a beginning and end time, may be
entered and exited by the flow of execution, and may exist within a
nested tree of similar spans. In addition, `tokio-trace` spans are
*structured*, with the ability to record typed data as well as textual
messages.
The `tokio-trace-core` crate contains the core primitives for this
system, which are expected to remain stable, while `tokio-trace` crate
provides a more "batteries-included" API. In particular, it provides
macros which are a superset of the `log` crate's `error!`, `warn!`,
`info!`, `debug!`, and `trace!` macros, allowing users to begin the
process of adopting `tokio-trace` by performing a drop-in replacement.
## Notes
Work on this project had previously been carried out in the
[tokio-trace-prototype] repository. In addition to the `tokio-trace` and
`tokio-trace-core` crates, the `tokio-trace-prototype` repo also
contains prototypes or sketches of adapter, compatibility, and utility
crates which provide useful functionality for `tokio-trace`, but these
crates are not yet ready for a release. When this branch is merged, that
repository will be archived, and the remaining unstable crates will be
moved to a new `tokio-trace-nursery` repository. Remaining issues on the
`tokio-trace-prototype` repo will be moved to the appropriate new repo.
The crates added in this branch are not _identical_ to the current head
of the `tokio-trace-prototype` repo, as I did some final clean-up and docs
polish in this branch prior to merging this PR.
[tokio-trace-prototype]: https://github.com/hawkw/tokio-trace-prototypeCloses: #561
Signed-off-by: Eliza Weisman <eliza@buoyant.io>
