Is this logging code faster than using a standard logging API like log4J

Question

is this logging code faster than using a standard logging API like log4J or the logging API in java 1.4
As you can see my needs are extremely simple. write some stuff to text file and write some stuff to dos window.
I am thinking about using this with a multi threaded app. So all the threads ~ 200 will be using this simultaneously.
* Tracer.class logs items according to the following criteria:
* 2 = goes to text file Crawler_log.txt
* 1 = goes to console window because it is higher priority.
* @author Stephen
* @version 1.0
* @since June 2002
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.text.*;
class Tracer{
public static void log(int traceLevel, String message, Object value)
if(traceLevel == 1){
System.out.println(getLogFileDate(new Date()) +" >" + message+ " value = " + value.toString()););
}else{
pout.write(getLogFileDate(new Date()) +" >" + message + " value = " + value.toString());
pout.flush();
public static void log(int traceLevel, String message )
if(traceLevel == 1){System.out.println(message);
}else{
pout.write(message ) ;
pout.flush();
//public static accessor method
public static Tracer getTracerInstance()
return tracerInstance;
private static String getLogFileDate(Date d )
String s = df.format(d);
String s1= s.replace(',','-');
String s2= s1.replace(' ','-');
String s3= s2.replace(':','.');
System.out.println("getLogFileDate() = " + s3 ) ;
return s3;
//private instance
private Tracer(){
System.out.println("Tracer constructor works");
df = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(DateFormat.MEDIUM, DateFormat.MEDIUM);
date = new java.util.Date();
try{
pout = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("Crawler_log"+getLogFileDate(new Date())+".txt", true)));
pout.write("**************** New Log File Created "+ getLogFileDate(new Date()) +"****************");
pout.flush();
}catch (IOException e){
System.out.println("**********THERE WAS A CRITICAL ERROR GETTING TRACER SINGLETON INITIALIZED. APPLICATION WILL STOP EXECUTION. ******* ");
public static void main(String[] argz){
System.out.println("main method starts ");
Tracer tt = Tracer.getTracerInstance();
System.out.println("main method successfully gets Tracer instance tt. "+ tt.toString());
//the next method is where it fails - on pout.write() of log method. Why ?
tt.log(1, "HIGH PRIORITY");
System.out.println("main method ends ");
//private static reference
private static Tracer tracerInstance = new Tracer();
private static Date date = null;
private static PrintWriter pout = null;
public static DateFormat df = null;
}

Answer 1

In general I'd guess that a small, custom thing will be faster than a large, generic thing with a lot of options. That is, unless the writer of the small program have done something stupid, og the writer of the large program have done something very smart.
One problem with java in this respect is that it is next to impossible to judge exactly how much machine-level processing a single java statement takes. Things like JIT compilers makes it even harder.
In the end, there is really only one way to find out: Test it.