Getting ROS_DEBUG during startup

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Ok, I found an answer. You have to create a temporary logger config file that sets the requested log debug level. Here's an example that sets the default logger:

$ cat tmp.cfg 
log4j.logger.ros=DEBUG

Then you pass that using an environment variable as:

$ ROSCONSOLE_CONFIG_FILE=tmp.cfg rqt --force-discover -v --list-plugins

The logger will load the config file at startup and initialize itself to the config in that file instead of the default level ("warn").