The eXtensible Logfile Format (XLF) project is an attempt at developing a base logfile format that can be easily extended to serve the needs of any kind of application's logging needs.
Ad-hoc log files are everywhere! Logfiles are usually created as an afterthought - especially in smaller shops or in-house projects, but even major applications create log files that look like they could have benefitted from a bit more foresight. Debugging logs are even more ad-hoc, yet are just as important as "official" logs, and often end up with lifespans that are every bit as long.
Programs rarely stand alone anymore - why should their histories be balkanized into incompatible formats? When more than one application has participated in a significant event on your system, ad-hoc logfile formats make it a pain to merge or analyze logs from disparate programs that have participated in some foul-up that you later need to examine.
What we need is a standard logfile format that is simple enough to get used by a majority of real-world projects & products, yet flexible enough to be useful to varied applications with idiosyncratic needs.
XLF 1.0 was developed in 1998 by a group headed by Don Park. The proposed format that we're now calling XLF 1.9.1 was independently developed in 2007 by Jennifer Palonus for her company's AutoIntern 2.0 product. We hope that this XLF Working Group can learn from both of these earlier efforts to come up with interim specifications ("1.9.2", "1.9.3", etc.), culminating in a truly public and popular XLF 2.0 standard.
Be sure to join the forum so you can take part in the discussions, help develop the standard documents & standard libraries.