Mongo::getConnections() returns information about all the connections that the connection manager knows about. Besides basic information such as the connection's hash ($m->getConnections()[0]['hash']) it also returns the following information:

• hash: the connection's identifier; f.e.: string(22) "whisky:27017;-;X;21093".

• server: contains an element for each of the elements in the hash, but broken up.

• connection: contains information about the connection and server it is connected to. It is an array with the following fields:

  • last_ping: timestamp that indicates when the server was last pinged; for example: int(1352479219).

  • last_ismaster: timestamp that indicates when the topology of a replicaset was last checked for; in the case of a standalone connection, this is: int(0).

  • ping_ms: the time it takes to get to the server and back again in milliseconds, this is very often just 0.

  • connection_type: the type of connection. The value is: 1 for a standalone connection, 2 for multiple "mongos" connections and 3 for a replica set connection.

  • connection_type_desc: a string representation of the above types.

  • max_bson_size: the maximum size of a document, right now, that is int(16777216) (bytes).

  • tag_count: the number of tags associated with this mongod server. I will explain what tags are and how you can use them in a future article on Read Preferences.

  • tags: an array containing all the tags.

As an example, this is what is returned for my replica set test setup:

<?php
$m = new Mongo("mongodb://whisky:13000/?replicaSet=seta");
print_r( $m->getConnections() );
?>

Which returns:

Array
(
  [0] => Array
    (
      [hash] => whisky:13000;seta;X;3955
      [server] => Array                           ← 'exploded' hash
        (
          [host] => whisky
          [port] => 13000
          [repl_set_name] => seta
          [pid] => 3955
        )

      [connection] => Array
        (
          [last_ping] => 1353515082
          [last_ismaster] => 1353515082
          [ping_ms] => 0                          ← ping time
          [connection_type] => 4
          [connection_type_desc] => SECONDARY     ← secondary node
          [max_bson_size] => 16777216             ← 16MB document limit
          [tag_count] => 2
          [tags] => Array                         ← tags
            (
              [0] => dc:west
              [1] => use:accounting
            )
        )
    )

  [1] => Array
    (
      [hash] => whisky:13001;seta;X;3955
      [server] => Array
        (
          [host] => whisky
          [port] => 13001
          [repl_set_name] => seta
          [pid] => 3955
        )

      [connection] => Array
        (
          [last_ping] => 1353515082
          [last_ismaster] => 1353515082
          [ping_ms] => 0
          [connection_type] => 2
          [connection_type_desc] => PRIMARY
          [max_bson_size] => 16777216
          [tag_count] => 2
          [tags] => Array
            (
              [0] => dc:east
              [1] => use:reporting
            )
        )
    )
)

The MongoLog class already existed in earlier versions of the driver, but the debugging information it provided was not really useful. While we were implementing the connection handling, we also overhauled the logging through MongoLog. We tried to improve the categorisation of specific into groups, and also classify them according to importantness. There is also a new MongoLog::setCallback() static method that can be used to catch all messages that pass through MongoLog. In that case, they will no longer show up as PHP Notices.

First, we show the most basic usage where we send all of the drivers messages as PHP Notices:

<?php
/* Configure logging */
MongoLog::setModule( MongoLog::ALL );
MongoLog::setLevel( MongoLog::ALL );

/* Make connection to see some log messages */
$m = new MongoClient();

This returns for example the following messages:

Notice: PARSE   INFO: Parsing localhost:27017 in - on line 7

Notice: PARSE   INFO: - Found node: localhost:27017 in - on line 7

Notice: PARSE   INFO: - Connection type: STANDALONE in - on line 7

Notice: CON     INFO: mongo_get_read_write_connection: finding a STANDALONE connection in - on line 7

Notice: CON     INFO: connection_create: creating new connection for localhost:27017 in - on line 7

Notice: CON     INFO: get_server_flags: start in - on line 7

Notice: CON     FINE: send_packet: read from header: 36 in - on line 7

Notice: CON     FINE: send_packet: data_size: 70 in - on line 7

Notice: CON     FINE: get_server_flags: setting maxBsonObjectSize to 16777216 in - on line 7

Notice: CON     FINE: is_ping: pinging localhost:27017;-;X;8830 in - on line 7

Notice: CON     FINE: send_packet: read from header: 36 in - on line 7

Notice: CON     FINE: send_packet: data_size: 17 in - on line 7

Notice: CON     WARN: is_ping: last pinged at 1353519357; time: 0ms in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: finding candidate servers in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: - all servers in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: filter_connections: adding connections: in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: - connection: type: STANDALONE, socket: 3, ping: 0, hash: localhost:27017;-;X;8830 in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: filter_connections: done in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: limiting by seeded/discovered servers in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: - connection: type: STANDALONE, socket: 3, ping: 0, hash: localhost:27017;-;X;8830 in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: limiting by seeded/discovered servers: done in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: sorting servers by priority and ping time in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: - connection: type: STANDALONE, socket: 3, ping: 0, hash: localhost:27017;-;X;8830 in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: sorting servers: done in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: selecting near servers in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: selecting near servers: nearest is 0ms in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: - connection: type: STANDALONE, socket: 3, ping: 0, hash: localhost:27017;-;X;8830 in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: selecting near server: done in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET FINE: pick server: random element 0 in - on line 7

Notice: REPLSET INFO: - connection: type: STANDALONE, socket: 3, ping: 0, hash: localhost:27017;-;X;8830 in - on line 7

Notice: CON     FINE: mongo_connection_destroy: Closing socket for localhost:27017;-;X;8830. in Unknown on line 0

Notice: CON     INFO: freeing connection localhost:27017;-;X;8830 in Unknown on line 0

As you can see, that is very verbose information—mostly useful when there is really something going wrong. We might ask you for this when submitting a bug report to the PHP driver's JIRA. In general though, you probably want to restrict the amount of information to something more manageable.

First of all, there are a few different levels that you can set through MongoLog::setLevel():

• MongoLog::NONE: no messages at all

• MongoLog::WARN: only show warnings, such as connection failures and misconfigurations

• MongoLog::INFO: informational messages, such as which options have been found during parsing, which hosts have been found, and which sort of connection the driver thinks it is using—this is in most cases the best level to pick

• MongoLog::FINE: diagnostic messages such as debugging for algorithms, and timing messages

The four constants can be used as a bit-field, so the following is possible (but not very useful):

MongoLog::setLevel( MongoLog::WARN | MongoLog::FINE );

The messages are divided into different categories. You can configure which categories are represented in the messages with the parameter to MongoLog:setModule():

• MongoLog::CON: Single connection issues and operations

• MongoLog::IO: Transferring queries, results and cursor related operations

• MongoLog::PARSE: Connection string parsing

• MongoLog::RS: Selecting which connection to use while using replica sets.

• MongoLog::SERVER: Not used at all

These categories can also be combined as a bit-field. For example, to only show connection and connection selection messages, use:

MongoLog::setModule( MongoLog::CON | MongoLog::RS );

The MongoLog class already existed, but new in 1.3 is the MongoLog::setCallback method. This method allows you to set-up your own callback function to deal with the MongoDB driver's log messages. We use this in the test cases to check whether specific messages have values we are looking for. It also allows you to filter, handle, and for example log messages in various ways.

For example, in the replica set tests, we set the following:

MongoLog::setCallback( function($a, $b, $message) { if (preg_match('/connection: type: ([A-Z]+),/', $message, $m )) { @$GLOBALS['mentions'][$m[1]]++; }; } );

And to make that a bit more readable and avoiding the closure:

function logCallBack( $a, $b, $message )
{
    if ( preg_match( '/connection: type: ([A-Z]+),/', $message, $m ) )
    {
        @$GLOBALS['mentions'][$m[1]]++;
    };
}

MongoLog::setCallback( 'logCallBack' );

The callback function accepts three arguments, the first one representing the module for this message, the second the log level and the third argument is the message. In the above example, we basically only want to find out which connection types the log dumps, and we compare that against what we expect. The values of the module constants that you can compare the first two arguments against are described in the documentation.

With this I conclude this post about new debugging functionality in the driver. Still to come are posts about Read Preferences and the new Aggregation Framework in MongoDB 2.2.