So, I need malleable logging facilities, and so far I've identified boost's logging facilities as useful. I've read the docs on logging, and right now I'm having difficulty achieving what I want-basically, I have a custom backend, in order that when logging is done, it gets routed to an alternative destination - over the network namely. I extended from text_ostream_backend, and basically I'm having the following trouble: I don't understand the record_view visitation API. I'd like the ability to set formatters and what not to remain untouched, but have the final formatted result sent off else where. I can change this by sending the string received in the consume function that has to be overrode, but the values are lost in the record_view. void consume (const record_view & rec, std::string s); where I do { send(s); } for the body. What I think is necessary is just to retain the default behavior of accepting whatever formatter was specified... What is the best way to go about achieving what I want?