This is a simple, header only, no dependency, cross platform logging library.
More on this library and others like it can be found at http://wildcoast.nz/open-source.
Download the latest version directly (right click, download).
Travis CI build & test status:
#include "Wild/Logging.h"
using namespace Wild::Logging;
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
string info = "interesting info";
string moreInfo = "more interesting info";
string reason = "things went wrong";
SetupLogging();
AddFileDestination("application.log"); // throws runtime_error if can't open
SetDebugLevel(1);
// Simple message
Info("Starting application", "startup successful");
// Message with additional data
Info( "Starting application", "startup successful",
{ I("info", info), I("more_info", moreInfo) });
Warning("Starting application", "wait I don't like the looks of this");
// Persistent logging data used for multiple messages
InfoBlob blob = { I("info", info), I("more_info", moreInfo) };
Error("Starting application", "startup failed", blob, { I("reason", reason) });
// Not shown due to debug level
Debug(2, "Starting application", "here is some really detailed info", blob);
Debug(1, "Starting application", "here is some detailed info", { I("info", info) });
ShutdownLogging();
}
The above code results in the following being printed to console and the file application.log
2015-08-26T06:39:29Z Info: Starting application, startup successful.
2015-08-26T06:39:29Z Info: Starting application, startup successful. Data {info: interesting info, more_info: more interesting info}
2015-08-26T06:39:29Z Warning: Starting application, wait I don't like the looks of this.
2015-08-26T06:39:29Z Error: Starting application, startup failed. Data {info: interesting info, more_info: more interesting info, reason: things went wrong}
2015-08-26T06:39:29Z Debug: Starting application, here is some detailed info. Data {info: interesting info}
All you need to use this library is to put Logging.h in your project and include it in your code.
Download the latest version directly (right click, download).
There is also a Nuget package for Visual Studio users, more info at:
https://www.nuget.org/packages/WildLogging
The correct include path to use after installing the Nuget package is
#include "Wild/Logging.h"All code is in the Wild::Logging namespace.
##Setting Up
Call SetupLogging() before starting to log, it optionally accepts a debug level parameter.
The library will write errors to stderr and all other messages to stdout by default. A log file can be specified by using AddFileDestination(path) which will open a log file for writing.
##Logging
A typical log function looks like this:
Info(doing, result, [info_blob], [info])
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| doing | what the code is trying to accomplish right now, usually contains a verb e.g. Connecting to database |
| result | what happened e.g. connection failed |
| info_blob | optional prebuilt list of name value pairs |
| info | list of name value pairs for this message only |
Supported types are Info, Warning, Error & Debug, here is a good stack overflow discussion on when to use which.
Debug works slightly differently in that it takes a debug level as first parameter:
Debug(level, doing, result, [info_blob], [info])
If level is less than or equal to the global debugging level, the message is logged, otherwise it is ignored. E.g. if the debug level is 2, Debug messages with level 1 and 2 will be printed, level 3 and higher will be ignored.
One difference from other logging libraries is the requirement to add two messages. This is a way to improve the readability and usefulness of the logs. We used this general idea on an enterprise level project a few years ago and found that almost everything you want to log can be expressed this way. Credit for this idea goes to our user experience expert Ailene (@ailene, http://oldmountainart.com/).
Log messages have mutexes around writes to output and file streams, so the library should perform fine when used from multiple threads. Thanks to /u/zorkmids for pointing out the need for this.
Note that setup, adding destinations and shutdown of the library have no special protection against multithread access. It's expected the user application will do these tasks outside any working threads at application start and end.
Note that the Unit Testing library is required alongside this library to compile the tests. E.g.
Wild/
Logging/
UnitTesting/
Logging.sln contains the library and test projects, compilation also runs the tests.
It was built with VS2013 but should work with other versions though it does require C++11 features.
The Linux build uses cmake, to test the lib it you can clone it, enter the directory and use
cmake .
make
Test\LoggingTest