Making `logging.basicConfig` log to *both* `sys.stderr` and `sys.stdout`?

[Michel Albert]

Hi,

I use python oftentimes to write automation scripts on Linux servers.
And there's a big pattern in my scripts:

- I *always* use `logging` instead of `print` statements.
- I *always* create two stream handlers. One for `sys.stdout` with
level `INFO` and one for `sys.stderr` with level `WARN`

Well, the levels may variate occasionally, but that's only the rare
exception.

The reason I do this is simple: Most automation tasks are run via
cron. With this setup, I can redirect `stdout` to `/dev/null` and
still receive e-mails if things go wrong.

And having two handlers gives me more flexibility in my scripts. In
one case, I used a different color for error messages for example as
this script is run primarily from the shell and having errors stand
out has proven to be a good thing.

Unfortunately this setup makes `logging.basicConfig` pretty useless.
However, I believe that this is something that more people could
benefit from. I also believe, that it just "makes sense" to send
warnings (and above) to `stderr`, the rest to `stdout`.

So I was thinking: "Why does `logging.basicConfig` not behave that
way".

Naturally, I was thinking of writing a patch against the python
codebase and submit it as a suggestion. But before doing so, I would
like to hear your thoughts on this. Does it make sense to you too or
am I on the wrong track? Are there any downsides I am missing?