README.md

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Documentation for v9.97.1

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Table of Contents

Overview
    Why yet another library
    Features at a glance
Getting Started
    Download
    Quick Start
    Install (Optional)
    Setting Application Arguments
Configuration
    Level
    Configure
        Using Configuration File
        Using el::Configurations Class
        Using In line Configurations
    Default Configurations
    Global Configurations
    Logging Format Specifiers
    Date/Time Format Specifiers
    Custom Format Specifiers
    Logging Flags
    Application Arguments
    Configuration Macros
    Reading Configurations
Logging
    Basic
    Conditional Logging
    Occasional Logging
    printf Like Logging
    Network Logging
    Verbose Logging
        Basic
        Conditional and Occasional
        Verbose Level
        Check If Verbose Logging Is On
        VModule
    Registering New Loggers
    Unregister Loggers
    Populating Existing Logger IDs
    Sharing Logging Repository
Extra Features
    Performance Tracking
        Conditional Performance Tracking
        Make Use of Performance Tracking Data
    Log File Rotating
    Crash Handling
        Installing Custom Crash Handlers
    Stacktrace
    Multi-threading
    CHECK Macros
    Logging perror()
    Using Syslog
    STL Logging
        Supported Templates
    Qt Logging
    Boost Logging
    wxWidgets Logging
    Extending Library
        Logging Your Own Class
        Logging Third-party Class
    Manually Flushing and Rolling Log Files
    Log Dispatch Callback
    Logger Registration Callback
    Asynchronous Logging
    Helper Classes
Contribution
    Submitting Patches
    Reporting a Bug
Compatibility
    Build Matrix
Licence
Disclaimer

Overview

Easylogging++ is single header efficient logging library for C++ applications. It is extremely powerful, highly extendable and configurable to user's requirements. It provides ability to write your own sinks (via featured referred as LogDispatchCallback). This library is currently used by hundreds of open-source projects on github and other open-source source control management sites.

This manual is for Easylogging++ v9.97.1. For other versions please refer to corresponding release on github.

You may also be interested in Residue logging server.

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Why yet another library

If you are working on a small utility or large project in C++, this library can be handy. Its based on single header and only requires to link to single source file. (Originally it was header-only and was changed to use source file in issue #445. You can still use header-only in v9.89).

This library has been designed with various thoughts in mind (i.e, portability, performance, usability, features and easy to setup).

Why yet another library? Well, answer is pretty straight forward, use it as you wrote it so you can fix issues (if any) as you go or raise them on github. In addition to that, I personally have not seen any logging library based on single-header with such a design where you can configure on the go, extend it to your needs and get fast performance. I have seen other single-header logging libraries for C++ but either they use external libraries, e.g, boost or Qt to support certain features like threading, regular expression or date etc. This library has everything built-in to prevent usage of external libraries, not that I don't like those libraries, in fact I love them, but because not all projects use these libraries, I couldn't take risk of depending on them.

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Features at a glance

Easylogging++ is feature-rich containing many features that both typical and advanced developer will require while writing a software;

• Highly configurable
• Extendable
• Extremely fast
• Thread and type safe
• Cross-platform
• Custom log patterns
• Conditional and occasional logging
• Performance tracking
• Verbose logging
• Crash handling
• Helper CHECK macros
• STL logging
• Send to Syslog
• Third-party library logging (Qt, boost, wxWidgets etc)
• Extensible (Logging your own class or third-party class)
• And many more...

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Getting Started

Download

Download latest version from Latest Release

For other releases, please visit releases page. If you application does not support C++11, please consider using v8.91. This is stable version for C++98 and C++03, just lack some features.

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Quick Start

In order to get started with Easylogging++, you can follow three easy steps:

• Download latest version
• Include into your project (easylogging++.h and easylogging++.cc)
• Initialize using single macro... and off you go!

#include "easylogging++.h"

INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
   LOG(INFO) << "My first info log using default logger";
   return 0;
}

Now compile using

g++ main.cc easylogging++.cc -o prog -std=c++11

That simple! Please note that INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP should be used once and once-only otherwise you will end up getting compilation errors. This is the definition of several extern variables. This means it can be defined only once per application. Best place to put this initialization statement is in file where int main(int, char**) function is defined, right after last include statement.

Install (Optional)

If you want to install this header system-wide, you can do so via:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -Dtest=ON ../
make
make test
make install

Following options are supported by Easylogging++ cmake and you can turn these options on using -D<option>=ON

• lib_utc_datetime - Defines ELPP_UTC_DATETIME
• build_static_lib - Builds static library for Easylogging++

With that said, you will still need easylogging++.cc file in order to compile. For header only, please check v9.89 and lower.

Alternatively, you can download and install easyloggingpp using the vcpkg dependency manager:

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
./vcpkg integrate install
./vcpkg install easyloggingpp

The easyloggingpp port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. If the version is out of date, please create an issue or pull request on the vcpkg repository.

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Setting Application Arguments

It is always recommended to pass application arguments to Easylogging++. Some features of Easylogging++ require you to set application arguments, e.g, verbose logging to set verbose level or vmodules (explained later). In order to do that you can use helper macro or helper class;

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
   START_EASYLOGGINGPP(argc, argv);
   ...
}

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Configuration

Level

In order to start configuring your logging library, you must understand severity levels. Easylogging++ deliberately does not use hierarchical logging in order to fully control what's enabled and what's not. That being said, there is still option to use hierarchical logging using LoggingFlag::HierarchicalLogging. Easylogging++ has following levels (ordered for hierarchical levels)

Level	Description
Global	Generic level that represents all levels. Useful when setting global configuration for all levels.
Trace	Information that can be useful to back-trace certain events - mostly useful than debug logs.
Debug	Informational events most useful for developers to debug application. Only applicable if NDEBUG is not defined (for non-VC++) or _DEBUG is defined (for VC++).
Fatal	Very severe error event that will presumably lead the application to abort.
Error	Error information but will continue application to keep running.
Warning	Information representing errors in application but application will keep running.
Info	Mainly useful to represent current progress of application.
Verbose	Information that can be highly useful and vary with verbose logging level. Verbose logging is not applicable to hierarchical logging.
Unknown	Only applicable to hierarchical logging and is used to turn off logging completely.

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Configure

Easylogging++ is easy to configure. There are three possible ways to do so,

• Using configuration file
• Using el::Configurations class
• Using inline configuration

Using Configuration File

Configuration can be done by file that is loaded at runtime by Configurations class. This file has following format;

* LEVEL:
  CONFIGURATION NAME  = "VALUE" ## Comment
  ANOTHER CONFIG NAME = "VALUE"

Level name starts with a star (*) and ends with colon (:). It is highly recommended to start your configuration file with Global level so that any configuration not specified in the file will automatically use configuration from Global. For example, if you set Filename in Global and you want all the levels to use same filename, do not set it explicitly for each level, library will use configuration value from Global automatically. Following table contains configurations supported by configuration file.

Configuration Name	Type	Description
Enabled	bool	Determines whether or not corresponding level for logger is enabled. You may disable all logs by using el::Level::Global
To_File	bool	Whether or not to write corresponding log to log file
To_Standard_Output	bool	Whether or not to write logs to standard output e.g, terminal or command prompt
Format	char*	Determines format/pattern of logging for corresponding level and logger.
Filename	char*	Determines log file (full path) to write logs to for corresponding level and logger
Subsecond_Precision	uint	Specifies subsecond precision (previously called 'milliseconds width'). Width can be within range (1-6)
Performance_Tracking	bool	Determines whether or not performance tracking is enabled. This does not depend on logger or level. Performance tracking always uses 'performance' logger unless specified
Max_Log_File_Size	size_t	If log file size of corresponding level is >= specified size, log file will be truncated.
Log_Flush_Threshold	size_t	Specifies number of log entries to hold until we flush pending log data

Please do not use double-quotes anywhere in comment, you might end up in unexpected behaviour.

Sample Configuration File

* GLOBAL:
   FORMAT               =  "%datetime %msg"
   FILENAME             =  "/tmp/logs/my.log"
   ENABLED              =  true
   TO_FILE              =  true
   TO_STANDARD_OUTPUT   =  true
   SUBSECOND_PRECISION  =  6
   PERFORMANCE_TRACKING =  true
   MAX_LOG_FILE_SIZE    =  2097152 ## 2MB - Comment starts with two hashes (##)
   LOG_FLUSH_THRESHOLD  =  100 ## Flush after every 100 logs
* DEBUG:
   FORMAT               = "%datetime{%d/%M} %func %msg"

Explanation

Configuration file contents in above sample is straightforward. We start with GLOBAL level in order to override all the levels. Any explicitly defined subsequent level will override configuration from GLOBAL. For example, all the levels except for DEBUG have the same format, i.e, datetime and log message. For DEBUG level, we have only date (with day and month), source function and log message. The rest of configurations for DEBUG are used from GLOBAL. Also, notice {%d/%M} in DEBUG format above, if you do not specify date format, default format is used. Default values of date/time is %d/%M/%Y %h:%m:%s,%g For more information on these format specifiers, please refer to Date/Time Format Specifier section below

Usage

#include "easylogging++.h"

INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP

int main(int argc, const char** argv) {
    // Load configuration from file
    el::Configurations conf("/path/to/my-conf.conf");
    // Reconfigure single logger
    el::Loggers::reconfigureLogger("default", conf);
    // Actually reconfigure all loggers instead
    el::Loggers::reconfigureAllLoggers(conf);
    // Now all the loggers will use configuration from file
}

Your configuration file can be converted to el::Configurations object (using constructor) that can be used where ever it is needed (like in above example).

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Using el::Configurations Class

You can set configurations or reset configurations;

#include "easylogging++.h"

INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP

int main(int argc, const char** argv) {
   el::Configurations defaultConf;
   defaultConf.setToDefault();
    // Values are always std::string
   defaultConf.set(el::Level::Info,
            el::ConfigurationType::Format, "%datetime %level %msg");
    // default logger uses default configurations
    el::Loggers::reconfigureLogger("default", defaultConf);
    LOG(INFO) << "Log using default file";
    // To set GLOBAL configurations you may use
   defaultConf.setGlobally(
            el::ConfigurationType::Format, "%date %msg");
   el::Loggers::reconfigureLogger("default", defaultConf);
    return 0;
}

Configuration just needs to be set once. If you are happy with default configuration, you may use it as well.

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Using In line Configurations

Inline configuration means you can set configurations in std::string but make sure you add all the new line characters etc. This is not recommended because it's always messy.

el::Configurations c;
c.setToDefault();
c.parseFromText("*GLOBAL:\n FORMAT = %level %msg");

Above code only sets Configurations object, you still need to re-configure logger/s using this configurations.

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Default Configurations

If you wish to have a configuration for existing and future loggers, you can use el::Loggers::setDefaultConfigurations(el::Configurations& configurations, bool configureExistingLoggers = false). This is useful when you are working on fairly large scale, or using a third-party library that is already using Easylogging++. Any newly created logger will use default configurations. If you wish to configure existing loggers as well, you can set second argument to true (it defaults to false).

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Global Configurations

Level::Global is nothing to do with global configurations, it is concept where you can register configurations for all/or some loggers and even register new loggers using configuration file. Syntax of configuration file is:

-- LOGGER ID ## Case sensitive
  ## Everything else is same as configuration file


-- ANOTHER LOGGER ID
  ## Configuration for this logger

Logger ID starts with two dashes. Once you have written your global configuration file you can configure your all loggers (and register new ones) using single function;

int main(void) {
   // Registers new and configures it or
   // configures existing logger - everything in global.conf
   el::Loggers::configureFromGlobal("global.conf");
   // .. Your prog
   return 0;
}

Please note, it is not possible to register new logger using global configuration without defining its configuration. You must define at least single configuration. Other ways to register loggers are discussed in Logging section below.

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Logging Format Specifiers

You can customize format of logging using following specifiers:

Specifier	Replaced By
%logger	Logger ID
%thread	Thread ID - Uses std::thread if available, otherwise GetCurrentThreadId() on windows
%thread_name	Use Helpers::setThreadName to set name of current thread (where you run setThreadName from). See Thread Names sample
%level	Severity level (Info, Debug, Error, Warning, Fatal, Verbose, Trace)
%levshort	Severity level (Short version i.e, I for Info and respectively D, E, W, F, V, T)
%vlevel	Verbosity level (Applicable to verbose logging)
%datetime	Date and/or time - Pattern is customizable - see Date/Time Format Specifiers below
%user	User currently running application
%host	Computer name application is running on
%file*	File name of source file (Full path) - This feature is subject to availability of __FILE__ macro of compiler
%fbase*	File name of source file (Only base name)
%line*	Source line number - This feature is subject to availability of __LINE__ macro of compile
%func*	Logging function
%loc*	Source filename and line number of logging (separated by colon)
%msg	Actual log message
%	Escape character (e.g, %%level will write %level)

• Subject to compiler's availability of certain macros, e.g, __LINE__, __FILE__ etc

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Date/Time Format Specifiers

You can customize date/time format using following specifiers

Specifier	Replaced By
%d	Day of month (zero-padded)
%a	Day of the week - short (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun)
%A	Day of the week - long (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
%M	Month (zero-padded)
%b	Month - short (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec)
%B	Month - Long (January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December)
%y	Year - Two digit (13, 14 etc)
%Y	Year - Four digit (2013, 2014 etc)
%h	Hour (12-hour format)
%H	Hour (24-hour format)
%m	Minute (zero-padded)
%s	Second (zero-padded)
%g	Subsecond part (precision is configured by ConfigurationType::SubsecondPrecision)
%F	AM/PM designation
%	Escape character

Please note, date/time is limited to 30 characters at most.

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Custom Format Specifiers

You can also specify your own format specifiers. In order to do that you can use el::Helpers::installCustomFormatSpecifier. A perfect example is %ip_addr for TCP server application;

const char* getIp(const el::LogMessage*) {
    return "192.168.1.1";
}

int main(void) {
    el::Helpers::installCustomFormatSpecifier(el::CustomFormatSpecifier("%ip_addr", getIp));
    el::Loggers::reconfigureAllLoggers(el::ConfigurationType::Format, "%datetime %level %ip_addr : %msg");
    LOG(INFO) << "This is request from client";
    return 0;
}

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Logging Flags

Form some parts of logging you can set logging flags; here are flags supported:

Flag	Description
NewLineForContainer (1)	Makes sure we have new line for each container log entry
AllowVerboseIfModuleNotSpecified (2)	Makes sure if -vmodule is used and does not specifies a module, then verbose logging is allowed via that module. Say param was -vmodule=main*=3 and a verbose log is being written from a file called something.cpp then if this flag is enabled, log will be written otherwise it will be disallowed. Note: having this defeats purpose of -vmodule
LogDetailedCrashReason (4)	When handling crashes by default, detailed crash reason will be logged as well (Disabled by default) (issue #90)
DisableApplicationAbortOnFatalLog (8)	Allows to disable application abortion when logged using FATAL level. Note that this does not apply to default crash handlers as application should be aborted after crash signal is handled. (Not added by default) (issue #119)
ImmediateFlush (16)	Flushes log with every log-entry (performance sensitive) - Disabled by default
StrictLogFileSizeCheck (32)	Makes sure log file size is checked with every log
ColoredTerminalOutput (64)	Terminal output will be colorful if supported by terminal.
MultiLoggerSupport (128)	Enables support for using multiple loggers to log single message. (E.g, CLOG(INFO, "default", "network") << This will be logged using default and network loggers;)
DisablePerformanceTrackingCheckpointComparison (256)	Disables checkpoint comparison
DisableVModules (512)	Disables usage of vmodules
DisableVModulesExtensions (1024)	Disables vmodules extension. This means if you have a vmodule -vmodule=main*=4 it will cover everything starting with main, where as if you do not have this defined you will be covered for any file starting with main and ending with one of the following extensions; .h .c .cpp .cc .cxx .-inl-.h .hxx .hpp. Please note following vmodule is not correct -vmodule=main.=4 with this macro not defined because this will check for main..c, notice double dots. If you want this to be valid, have a look at logging flag above: AllowVerboseIfModuleNotSpecified '?' and '' wildcards are supported
HierarchicalLogging (2048)	Enables hierarchical logging. This is not applicable to verbose logging.
CreateLoggerAutomatically (4096)	Creates logger automatically when not available.
AutoSpacing (8192)	Automatically adds spaces. E.g, LOG(INFO) << "DODGE" << "THIS!"; will output "DODGE THIS!"
FixedTimeFormat (16384)	Applicable to performance tracking only - this prevents formatting time. E.g, 1001 ms will be logged as is, instead of formatting it as 1.01 sec
IgnoreSigInt (32768)	When application crashes ignore Interruption signal

You can set/unset these flags by using static el::Loggers::addFlag and el::Loggers::removeFlag. You can check to see if certain flag is available by using el::Loggers::hasFlag, all these functions take strongly-typed enum el::LoggingFlag

You can set these flags by using --logging-flags command line arg. You need to enable this functionality by defining macro ELPP_LOGGING_FLAGS_FROM_ARG (You will need to make sure to use START_EASYLOGGINGPP(argc, argv) to configure arguments).

You can also set default (initial) flags using ELPP_DEFAULT_LOGGING_FLAGS and set numerical value for initial flags

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Application Arguments

Following table will explain all command line arguments that you may use to define certain behaviour; You will need to initialize application arguments by using START_EASYLOGGINGPP(argc, argv) in your main(int, char**) function.

Argument	Description
-v	Activates maximum verbosity
--v=2	Activates verbosity upto verbose level 2 (valid range: 0-9)
--verbose	Activates maximum verbosity
-vmodule=MODULE_NAME	Activates verbosity for files starting with main to level 1, the rest of the files depend on logging flag AllowVerboseIfModuleNotSpecified Please see Logging Flags section above. Two modules can be separated by comma. Please note vmodules are last in order of precedence of checking arguments for verbose logging, e.g, if we have -v in application arguments before vmodules, vmodules will be ignored.
--logging-flags=3	Sets logging flag. In example i.e, 3, it sets logging flag to NewLineForContainer and AllowVerboseIfModuleNotSpecified. See logging flags section above for further details and values. See macros section to disable this function.
--default-log-file=FILE	Sets default log file for existing and future loggers. You may want to consider defining ELPP_NO_DEFAULT_LOG_FILE to prevent creation of default empty log file during pre-processing. See macros section to disable this function.

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Configuration Macros

Some of logging options can be set by macros, this is a thoughtful decision, for example if we have ELPP_THREAD_SAFE defined, all the thread-safe functionalities are enabled otherwise disabled (making sure over-head of thread-safety goes with it). To make it easy to remember and prevent possible conflicts, all the macros start with ELPP_

NOTE: All the macros can be defined in one of the following ways:

1. Define macros using -D option of compiler, for example in case of g++ you will do g++ source.cpp ... -DELPP_SYSLOG -DELPP_THREAD_SAFE ... (recommended way)

2. Define macros inside "easylogging++.h" (defining macros in other files won't work)

Macro Name	Description
ELPP_DEBUG_ASSERT_FAILURE	Aborts application on first assertion failure. This assertion is due to invalid input e.g, invalid configuration file etc.
ELPP_UNICODE	Enables Unicode support when logging. Requires START_EASYLOGGINGPP
ELPP_THREAD_SAFE	Enables thread-safety - make sure -lpthread linking for linux.
ELPP_FORCE_USE_STD_THREAD	Forces to use C++ standard library for threading (Only useful when using ELPP_THREAD_SAFE
ELPP_FEATURE_CRASH_LOG	Applicable to GCC only. Enables stacktrace on application crash
ELPP_DISABLE_DEFAULT_CRASH_HANDLING	Disables default crash handling. You can use el::Helpers::setCrashHandler to use your own handler.
ELPP_DISABLE_LOGS	Disables all logs - (preprocessing)
ELPP_DISABLE_DEBUG_LOGS	Disables debug logs - (preprocessing)
ELPP_DISABLE_INFO_LOGS	Disables info logs - (preprocessing)
ELPP_DISABLE_WARNING_LOGS	Disables warning logs - (preprocessing)
ELPP_DISABLE_ERROR_LOGS	Disables error logs - (preprocessing)
ELPP_DISABLE_FATAL_LOGS	Disables fatal logs - (preprocessing)
ELPP_DISABLE_VERBOSE_LOGS	Disables verbose logs - (preprocessing)
ELPP_DISABLE_TRACE_LOGS	Disables trace logs - (preprocessing)
ELPP_FORCE_ENV_VAR_FROM_BASH	If environment variable could not be found, force using alternative bash command to find value, e.g, whoami for username. (DO NOT USE THIS MACRO WITH LD_PRELOAD FOR LIBRARIES THAT ARE ALREADY USING Easylogging++ OR YOU WILL END UP IN STACK OVERFLOW FOR PROCESSES (popen) (see issue #87 for details))
ELPP_DEFAULT_LOG_FILE	Full filename where you want initial files to be created. You need to embed value of this macro with quotes, e.g, -DELPP_DEFAULT_LOG_FILE='"logs/el.gtest.log"' Note the double quotes inside single quotes, double quotes are the values for const char* and single quotes specifies value of macro
ELPP_NO_LOG_TO_FILE	Disable logging to file initially
ELPP_NO_DEFAULT_LOG_FILE	If you dont want to initialize library with default log file, define this macro. This will log to null device for unix and windows. In other platforms you may get error and you will need to use ELPP_DEFAULT_LOG_FILE. (PR for other platform's null devices are most welcomed)
ELPP_FRESH_LOG_FILE	Never appends log file whenever log file is created (Use with care as it may cause some unexpected result for some users)
ELPP_DEBUG_ERRORS	If you wish to find out internal errors raised by Easylogging++ that can be because of configuration or something else, you can enable them by defining this macro. You will get your errors on standard output i.e, terminal or command prompt.
ELPP_DISABLE_CUSTOM_FORMAT_SPECIFIERS	Forcefully disables custom format specifiers
ELPP_DISABLE_LOGGING_FLAGS_FROM_ARG	Forcefully disables ability to set logging flags using command-line arguments
ELPP_DISABLE_LOG_FILE_FROM_ARG	Forcefully disables ability to set default log file from command-line arguments
ELPP_WINSOCK2	On windows system force to use winsock2.h instead of winsock.h when WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN is defined
ELPP_CUSTOM_COUT (advanced)	Resolves to a value e.g, #define ELPP_CUSTOM_COUT qDebug() or #define ELPP_CUSTOM_COUT std::cerr. This will use the value for standard output (instead of using std::cout
ELPP_CUSTOM_COUT_LINE (advanced)	Used with ELPP_CUSTOM_COUT to define how to write a log line with custom cout. e.g, #define ELPP_CUSTOM_COUT_LINE(msg) QString::fromStdString(msg).trimmed()
ELPP_NO_CHECK_MACROS	Do not define the CHECK macros
ELPP_NO_DEBUG_MACROS	Do not define the DEBUG macros
ELPP_UTC_DATETIME	Uses UTC time instead of local time (essentially uses gmtime instead of localtime and family functions)
ELPP_NO_GLOBAL_LOCK	Do not lock the whole storage on dispatch. This should be used with care. See issue #580

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Reading Configurations

If you wish to read configurations of certain logger, you can do so by using typedConfigurations() function in Logger class.

el::Logger* l = el::Loggers::getLogger("default");
bool enabled = l->typedConfigurations()->enabled(el::Level::Info);
// Or to read log format/pattern
std::string format =
        l->typedConfigurations()->logFormat(el::Level::Info).format();

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Logging

Logging in easylogging++ is done using collection of macros. This is to make it easier for user and to prevent them knowing about unnecessary greater details of how things are done.

Basic

You are provided with two basic macros that you can use in order to write logs:

• LOG(LEVEL)
• CLOG(LEVEL, logger ID)

LOG uses 'default' logger while in CLOG (Custom LOG) you specify the logger ID. For LEVELs please refer to Configurations - Levels section above. Different loggers might have different configurations depending on your need, you may as well write custom macro to access custom logger. You also have different macros for verbose logging that is explained in section below. Here is very simple example of using these macros after you have initialized easylogging++.

LOG(INFO) << "This is info log";
CLOG(ERROR, "performance") << "This is info log using performance logger";

There is another way to use same macro i.e, LOG (and associated macros). This is that you define macro ELPP_DEFAULT_LOGGER and ELPP_DEFAULT_PERFORMANCE_LOGGER with logger ID that is already registered, and now when you use LOG macro, it automatically will use specified logger instead of default logger. Please note that this should be defined in source file instead of header file. This is so that when we include header we dont accidently use invalid logger.

A quick example is here

#ifndef ELPP_DEFAULT_LOGGER
#   define ELPP_DEFAULT_LOGGER "update_manager"
#endif
#ifndef ELPP_DEFAULT_PERFORMANCE_LOGGER
#   define ELPP_DEFAULT_PERFORMANCE_LOGGER ELPP_DEFAULT_LOGGER
#endif
#include "easylogging++.h"
UpdateManager::UpdateManager {
    _TRACE; // Logs using LOG(TRACE) provided logger is already registered - i.e, update_manager
    LOG(INFO) << "This will log using update_manager logger as well";
}

#include "easylogging++.h"
UpdateManager::UpdateManager {
    _TRACE; // Logs using LOG(TRACE) using default logger because no `ELPP_DEFAULT_LOGGER` is defined unless you have it in makefile
}

You can also write logs by using Logger class directly. This feature is available on compilers that support variadic templates. You can explore more by looking at samples/STL/logger-log-functions.cpp.

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Conditional Logging

Easylogging++ provides certain aspects of logging, one these aspects is conditional logging, i.e, log will be written only if certain condition fulfils. This comes very handy in some situations. Helper macros end with _IF;

• LOG_IF(condition, LEVEL)
• CLOG_IF(condition, LEVEL, logger ID)

Some examples:

LOG_IF(condition, INFO) << "Logged if condition is true";

LOG_IF(false, WARNING) << "Never logged";
CLOG_IF(true, INFO, "performance") << "Always logged (performance logger)"

Same macros are available for verbose logging with V in the beginning, i.e, VLOG_IF and CVLOG_IF. see verbose logging section below for further information. You may have as complicated conditions as you want depending on your need.

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Occasional Logging

Occasional logging is another useful aspect of logging with Easylogging++. This means a log will be written if it's hit certain times or part of certain times, e.g, every 10th hit or 100th hit or 2nd hit. Helper macros end with _EVERY_N;

• LOG_EVERY_N(n, LEVEL)
• CLOG_EVERY_N(n, LEVEL, logger ID)

Other Hit Counts Based Logging

There are some other ways of logging as well based on hit counts. These useful macros are

• LOG_AFTER_N(n, LEVEL); Only logs when we have reached hit counts of n
• LOG_N_TIMES(n, LEVEL); Logs n times

Some examples:

for (int i = 1; i <= 10; ++i) {
   LOG_EVERY_N(2, INFO) << "Logged every second iter";
}
// 5 logs written; 2, 4, 6, 7, 10

for (int i = 1; i <= 10; ++i) {
   LOG_AFTER_N(2, INFO) << "Log after 2 hits; " << i;
}
// 8 logs written; 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

for (int i = 1; i <= 100; ++i) {
   LOG_N_TIMES(3, INFO) << "Log only 3 times; " << i;
}
// 3 logs writter; 1, 2, 3

Same versions of macros are available for DEBUG only mode, these macros start with D (for debug) followed by the same name. e.g, DLOG to log only in debug mode (i.e, when _DEBUG is defined or NDEBUG is undefined)

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printf Like Logging

For compilers that support C++11's variadic templates, ability to log like "printf" is available. This is done by using Logger class. This feature is thread and type safe (as we do not use any macros like LOG(INFO) etc)

This is done in two steps:

1. Pulling registered logger using el::Loggers::getLogger(<logger_id>);
2. Using one of logging functions

The only difference from printf is that logging using these functions require %v for each arg (This is for type-safety); instead of custom format specifiers. You can escape this by %%v

Following are various function signatures:

• info(const char*, const T&, const Args&...)
• warn(const char*, const T&, const Args&...)
• error(const char*, const T&, const Args&...)
• debug(const char*, const T&, const Args&...)
• fatal(const char*, const T&, const Args&...)
• trace(const char*, const T&, const Args&...)
• verbose(int vlevel, const char*, const T&, const Args&...)

Simple example:

// Use default logger
el::Logger* defaultLogger = el::Loggers::getLogger("default");

// STL logging (`ELPP_STL_LOGGING` should be defined)
std::vector<int> i;
i.push_back(1);
defaultLogger->warn("My first ultimate log message %v %v %v", 123, 222, i);

// Escaping
defaultLogger->info("My first ultimate log message %% %%v %v %v", 123, 222);

%file, %func %line and %loc format specifiers will not work with printf like logging.

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Network Logging

You can send your messages to network. But you will have to implement your own way using log dispatcher API. We have written fully working sample for this purpose. Please see Send to Network sample

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Verbose Logging

Basic

Verbose logging is useful in every software to record more information than usual. Very useful for troubleshooting. Following are verbose logging specific macros;

• VLOG(verbose-level)
• CVLOG(verbose-level, logger ID)

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Conditional and Occasional Logging

Verbose logging also has conditional and occasional logging aspects i.e,

• VLOG_IF(condition, verbose-level)
• CVLOG_IF(condition, verbose-level, loggerID)
• VLOG_EVERY_N(n, verbose-level)
• CVLOG_EVERY_N(n, verbose-level, loggerID)
• VLOG_AFTER_N(n, verbose-level)
• CVLOG_AFTER_N(n, verbose-level, loggerID)
• VLOG_N_TIMES(n, verbose-level)
• CVLOG_N_TIMES(n, verbose-level, loggerID)

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Verbose-Level

Verbose level is level of verbosity that can have range of 1-9. Verbose level will not be active unless you either set application arguments for it. Please read through Application Arguments section to understand more about verbose logging.

In order to change verbose level on the fly, please use Loggers::setVerboseLevel(base::type::VerboseLevel) aka Loggers::setVerboseLevel(int) function. (You can check current verbose level by Loggers::verboseLevel()

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Check If Verbose Logging Is On

You can use a macro VLOG_IS_ON(verbose-level) to check to see if certain logging is on for source file for specified verbose level. This returns boolean that you can embed into if condition.

if (VLOG_IS_ON(2)) {
   // Verbosity level 2 is on for this file
}

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VModule

VModule is functionality for verbose logging (as mentioned in above table) where you can specify verbosity by modules/source file. Following are some examples with explanation; Any of vmodule below starts with -vmodule= and LoggingFlag::DisableVModulesExtensions flag not set. Vmodule can completely be disabled by adding flag LoggingFlag::DisableVModules

Example with LoggingFlag::AllowVerboseIfModuleNotSpecified flag;

main=3,parser*=4:

• A bad example but good enough for explanation;
• Verbosity for any following file will be allowed; main{.h, .c, .cpp, .cc, .cxx, -inl.h, .hxx, .hpp} parser{.h, .c, .cpp, .cc, .cxx, -inl.h, .hxx, .hpp}
• No other file will be logged for verbose level

Example with no LoggingFlag::AllowVerboseIfModuleNotSpecified flag;

main=3,parser*=4: Same explanation but any other file that does not fall under specified modules will have verbose logging enabled.

In order to change vmodules on the fly (instead of via command line args) - use Loggers::setVModules(const char*) where const char* represents the modules e.g, main=3,parser*=4 (as per above example)

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Registering New Loggers

Loggers are unique in logger repository by ID. You can register new logger the same way as you would get logger. Using getLogger(.., ..) from el::Loggers helper class. This function takes two params, first being ID and second being boolean (optional) to whether or not to register new logger if does not already exist and returns pointer to existing (or newly created) el::Logger class. This second param is optional and defaults to true. If you set it to false and logger does not exist already, it will return nullptr.

By default, Easylogging++ registers three loggers (+ an internal logger);

• Default logger (ID: default)
• Performance logger (ID: performance)
• Syslog logger (if ELPP_SYSLOG macro is defined) (ID: syslog)

If you wish to register a new logger, say e.g, with ID business

el::Logger* businessLogger = el::Loggers::getLogger("business");

This will register a new logger if it does not already exist otherwise it will get an existing one. But if you have passed in false to the second param and logger does not already exist, businessLogger will be nullptr.

When you register a new logger, default configurations are used (see Default Configurations section above). Also worth noticing, logger IDs are case sensitive.

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Unregister Loggers

You may unregister loggers; any logger except for default. You should be really careful with this function, only unregister loggers that you have created yourself otherwise you may end up in unexpected errors. For example, you dont want to unregister logger that is used or initialized by a third-party library and it may be using it.

To unregister logger, use el::Loggers::unregisterLogger("logger-id")

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Populating Existing Logger IDs

Although this is a rare situation but if you wish to get list of all the logger IDs currently in repository, you may use el::Loggers::populateAllLoggerIds(std::vector<std::string>&) function to do that. The list passed in is cleared and filled up with all existing logger IDs.

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Sharing Logging Repository

For advance logging, you can share your logging repositories to shared or static libraries, or even from library to application. This is rare case but a very good example is as follows;

Let's say we have an application that uses easylogging++ and has its own configuration, now you are importing library that uses easylogging++ and wants to access logging repository of main application. You can do this using two ways;

• Instead of using INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP you use SHARE_EASYLOGGINGPP(access-function-to-repository)
• Instead of using INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP you use INITIALIZE_NULL_EASYLOGGINGPP and then el::Helpers::setStorage(el::base::type::StoragePointer)

After you share repository, you can reconfigure the only repository (i.e, the one that is used by application and library both), and use both to write logs.

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Extra Features

Easylogging++ is feature-rich logging library. Apart from features already mentioned above, here are some extra features. If code snippets don't make sense and further sample is needed, there are many samples available at github repository (samples). Feel free to browse around.

Some features require you to define macros (marked as prerequisite in each section) to enable them. This is to reduce compile time. If you want to enable all features you can define ELPP_FEATURE_ALL.

Performance Tracking

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_FEATURE_PERFORMANCE_TRACKING

One of the most notable features of Easylogging++ is its ability to track performance of your function or block of function. Please note, this is not backward compatible as previously we had macros that user must had defined in order to track performance and I am sure many users had avoided in doing so. (Read v8.91 ReadMe for older way of doing it) The new way of tracking performance is much easier and reliable. All you need to do is use one of two macros from where you want to start tracking.

• TIMED_FUNC(obj-name)
• TIMED_SCOPE(obj-name, block-name)
• TIMED_BLOCK(obj-name, block-name)

An example that just uses usleep

void performHeavyTask(int iter) {
   TIMED_FUNC(timerObj);
   // Some initializations
   // Some more heavy tasks
   usleep(5000);
   while (iter-- > 0) {
       TIMED_SCOPE(timerBlkObj, "heavy-iter");
       // Perform some heavy task in each iter
       usleep(10000);
   }
}

The result of above execution for iter = 10, is as following

06:22:31,368 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,379 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,389 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,399 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,409 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,419 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,429 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,440 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,450 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,460 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [10 ms]
06:22:31,460 INFO Executed [void performHeavyTask(int)] in [106 ms]

In the above example, we have used both the macros. In line-2 we have TIMED_FUNC with object pointer name timerObj and line-7 we have TIMED_SCOPE with object pointer name timerBlkObj and block name heavy-iter. Notice how block name is thrown out to the logs with every hit. (Note: TIMED_FUNC is TIMED_SCOPE with block name = function name)

You might wonder why do we need object name. Well easylogging++ performance tracking feature takes it further and provides ability to add, what's called checkpoints. Checkpoints have two macros:

• PERFORMANCE_CHECKPOINT(timed-block-obj-name)
• PERFORMANCE_CHECKPOINT_WITH_ID(timed-block-obj-name, id)

Take a look at following example

void performHeavyTask(int iter) {
   TIMED_FUNC(timerObj);
   // Some initializations
   // Some more heavy tasks
   usleep(5000);
   while (iter-- > 0) {
       TIMED_SCOPE(timerBlkObj, "heavy-iter");
       // Perform some heavy task in each iter
       // Notice following sleep varies with each iter
       usleep(iter * 1000);
       if (iter % 3) {
           PERFORMANCE_CHECKPOINT(timerBlkObj);
       }
   }
}

Notice macro on line-11 (also note comment on line-8). It's checkpoint for heavy-iter block. Now notice following output

06:33:07,558 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [9 ms]
06:33:07,566 INFO Performance checkpoint for block [heavy-iter] : [8 ms]
06:33:07,566 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [8 ms]
06:33:07,573 INFO Performance checkpoint for block [heavy-iter] : [7 ms]
06:33:07,573 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [7 ms]
06:33:07,579 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [6 ms]
06:33:07,584 INFO Performance checkpoint for block [heavy-iter] : [5 ms]
06:33:07,584 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [5 ms]
06:33:07,589 INFO Performance checkpoint for block [heavy-iter] : [4 ms]
06:33:07,589 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [4 ms]
06:33:07,592 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [3 ms]
06:33:07,594 INFO Performance checkpoint for block [heavy-iter] : [2 ms]
06:33:07,594 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [2 ms]
06:33:07,595 INFO Performance checkpoint for block [heavy-iter] : [1 ms]
06:33:07,595 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [1 ms]
06:33:07,595 INFO Executed [heavy-iter] in [0 ms]
06:33:07,595 INFO Executed [void performHeavyTask(int)] in [51 ms]

You can also compare two checkpoints if they are in sub-blocks e.g, changing from PERFORMANCE_CHECKPOINT(timerBlkObj) to PERFORMANCE_CHECKPOINT(timerObj) will result in following output

06:40:35,522 INFO Performance checkpoint for block [void performHeavyTask(int)] : [51 ms ([1 ms] from last checkpoint)]

If you had used PERFORMANCE_CHECKPOINT_WITH_ID(timerObj, "mychkpnt"); instead, you will get

06:44:37,979 INFO Performance checkpoint [mychkpnt] for block [void performHeavyTask(int)] : [51 ms ([1 ms] from checkpoint 'mychkpnt')]

Following are some useful macros that you can define to change the behaviour

Macro Name	Description
ELPP_DISABLE_PERFORMANCE_TRACKING	Disables performance tracking
ELPP_PERFORMANCE_MICROSECONDS	Track up-to microseconds (this includes initializing of el::base::PerformanceTracker as well so might time not be 100% accurate)

Notes:

1. Performance tracking uses performance logger (INFO level) by default unless el::base::PerformanceTracker is constructed manually (not using macro - not recommended). When configuring other loggers, make sure you configure this one as well.

2. In above examples, timerObj and timerBlkObj is of type el::base::type::PerformanceTrackerPtr. The checkpoint() routine of the el::base::PerformanceTracker can be accessed by timerObj->checkpoint() but not recommended as this will override behaviour of using macros, behaviour like location of checkpoint.

3. In order to access el::base::type::PerformanceTrackerPtr while in TIMED_BLOCK, you can use timerObj.timer

4. TIMED_BLOCK macro resolves to a single-looped for-loop, so be careful where you define TIMED_BLOCK, if for-loop is allowed in the line where you use it, you should have no errors.

You may be interested in python script to parse performance logs

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Conditional Performance Tracking

If you want to enable performance tracking for certain conditions only, e.g. based on a certain verbosity level, you can use the variants TIMED_FUNC_IF or TIMED_SCOPE_IF.

A verbosity level example is given below

 void performHeavyTask(int iter) {
    // enable performance tracking for verbosity level 4 or higher
    TIMED_FUNC_IF( timerObj, VLOG_IS_ON(4) );
    // Some more heavy tasks
 }

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Make Use of Performance Tracking Data

If you wish to capture performance tracking data right after it is finished, you can do so by extending el::PerformanceTrackingCallback.

In order to install this handler, use void Helpers::installPerformanceTrackingCallback<T>(const std::string& id). Where T is type of your handler. If you wish to uninstall a callback, you can do so by using Helpers::uninstallPerformanceTrackingCallback<T>(const std::string& id). See samples for details

DO NOT TRACK PERFORMANCE IN THIS HANDLER OR YOU WILL END UP IN INFINITE-LOOP

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Log File Rotating

Easylogging++ has ability to roll out (or throw away / rotate) log files if they reach certain limit. You can configure this by setting Max_Log_File_Size. See Configuration section above.

Rollout checking happens when Easylogging++ flushes the log file, or, if you have added the flag el::LoggingFlags::StrictLogFileSizeCheck, at each log output.

This feature has its own section in this reference manual because you can do stuffs with the file being thrown away. This is useful, for example if you wish to back this file up etc. This can be done by using el::Helpers::installPreRollOutCallback(const PreRollOutCallback& handler) where PreRollOutCallback is typedef of type std::function<void(const char*, std::size_t)>. Please note following if you are using this feature

There is a sample available that you can use as basis.

You should not log anything in this function. This is because logger would already be locked in multi-threaded application and you can run into dead lock conditions. If you are sure that you are not going to log to same file and not using same logger, feel free to give it a try.

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Crash Handling

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_FEATURE_CRASH_LOG

Easylogging++ provides ability to handle unexpected crashes for GCC compilers. This is active by default and can be disabled by defining macro ELPP_DISABLE_DEFAULT_CRASH_HANDLING. By doing so you are telling library not to handle any crashes. Later on if you wish to handle crash yourself, you can assign crash handler of type void func(int) where int is signal caught.

Following signals are handled;

• SIGABRT (If ELPP_HANDLE_SIGABRT macro is defined)
• SIGFPE
• SIGILL
• SIGSEGV
• SIGINT

Stacktraces are not printed by default, in order to do so define macro ELPP_FEATURE_CRASH_LOG. Remember, stack trace is only available for GCC compiler.

Default handler and stack trace uses default logger.

Following are some useful macros that you can define to change the behaviour

Macro Name	Description
ELPP_DISABLE_DEFAULT_CRASH_HANDLING	Disables default crash handling.
ELPP_HANDLE_SIGABRT	Enables handling SIGABRT. This is disabled by default to prevent annoying CTRL + C behaviour when you wish to abort.

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Installing Custom Crash Handlers

You can use your own crash handler by using el::Helpers::setCrashHandler(const el::base::debug::CrashHandler::Handler&);.

Make sure to abort application at the end of your crash handler using el::Helpers::crashAbort(int). If you fail to do so, you will get into endless loop of crashes.

Here is a good example of your own handler

#include "easylogging++.h"

INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP

void myCrashHandler(int sig) {
    LOG(ERROR) << "Woops! Crashed!";     
    // FOLLOWING LINE IS ABSOLUTELY NEEDED AT THE END IN ORDER TO ABORT APPLICATION
    el::Helpers::crashAbort(sig);
}
int main(void) {
    el::Helpers::setCrashHandler(myCrashHandler);

    LOG(INFO) << "My crash handler!";

    int* i;
    *i = 0; // Crash!

    return 0;
}

If you wish to log reason for crash you can do so by using el::Helpers::logCrashReason(int, bool, const el::Level&, const char*). Following are default parameters for this function:

>  bool stackTraceIfAvailable = false
>  const el::Level& level = el::Level::Fatal
>  const char* logger = "default"

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Stacktrace

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_FEATURE_CRASH_LOG

Easylogging++ supports stack trace printing for GCC compilers. You can print stack trace at anytime by calling el::base::debug::StackTrace(), formatting will be done automatically. Note, if you are using non-GCC compiler, you will end-up getting empty output.

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Multi-threading

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_THREAD_SAFE

Easylogging++ is thread-safe. By default thread-safety is disabled. You can enable it by defining ELPP_THREAD_SAFE otherwise you will see unexpected results. This is intentional to make library efficient for single threaded application.

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CHECK Macros

Easylogging++ supports CHECK macros, with these macros you can quickly check whether certain condition fulfills or not. If not Easylogging++ writes FATAL log, causing application to stop (unless defined macro to prevent stopping application on fatal).

CHECK Name	Notes + Example
CHECK(condition)	Checks for condition e.g, CHECK(isLoggedIn()) << "Not logged in";
CHECK_EQ(a, b)	Equality check e.g, CHECK_EQ(getId(), getLoggedOnId()) << "Invalid user logged in";
CHECK_NE(a, b)	Inequality check e.g, CHECK_NE(isUserBlocked(userId), false) << "User is blocked";
CHECK_LT(a, b)	Less than e.g, CHECK_LT(1, 2) << "How 1 is not less than 2";
CHECK_GT(a, b)	Greater than e.g, CHECK_GT(2, 1) << "How 2 is not greater than 1?";
CHECK_LE(a, b)	Less than or equal e.g, CHECK_LE(1, 1) << "1 is not equal or less than 1";
CHECK_GE(a, b)	Greater than or equal e.g, CHECK_GE(1, 1) << "1 is not equal or greater than 1";
CHECK_NOTNULL(pointer)	Ensures pointer is not null. This function does not return anything
CHECK_STREQ(str1, str2)	C-string equality (case-sensitive) e.g, CHECK_STREQ(argv[1], "0") << "First arg cannot be 0";
CHECK_STRNE(str1, str2)	C-string inequality (case-sensitive) e.g, CHECK_STRNE(username1, username2) << "Usernames cannot be same";
CHECK_STRCASEEQ(str1, str2)	C-string inequality (case-insensitive) e.g, CHECK_CASESTREQ(argv[1], "Z") << "First arg cannot be 'z' or 'Z'";
CHECK_STRCASENE(str1, str2)	C-string inequality (case-insensitive) e.g, CHECK_STRCASENE(username1, username2) << "Same username not allowed";
CHECK_BOUNDS(val, min, max)	Checks that val falls under the min and max range e.g, CHECK_BOUNDS(i, 0, list.size() - 1) << "Index out of bounds";

Same versions of macros are available for DEBUG only mode, these macros start with D (for debug) followed by the same name. e.g, DCHECK to check only in debug mode (i.e, when _DEBUG is defined or NDEBUG is undefined)

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Logging perror()

Easylogging++ supports perror() styled logging using PLOG(LEVEL), PLOG_IF(Condition, LEVEL), and PCHECK() using default logger; and for custom logger use CPLOG(LEVEL, LoggerId), CPLOG_IF(Condition, LEVEL, LoggerId). This will append : log-error [errno] in the end of log line.

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Syslog

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_SYSLOG

Easylogging++ supports syslog for platforms that have syslog.h header. If your platform does not have syslog.h, make sure you do not define this macro or you will end up in errors. Once you are ready to use syslog, you can do so by using one of SYSLOG(LEVEL), SYSLOG_IF(Condition, LEVEL), SYSLOG_EVERY_N(n, LEVEL) and uses logger ID: syslog. If you want to use custom logger you can do so by using CSYSLOG(LEVEL, loggerId) or CSYSLOG_IF(Condition, LEVEL, loggerId) or CSYSLOG_EVERY_N(n, LEVEL, loggerId)

Syslog in Easylogging++ supports C++ styled streams logging, following example;

#include "easylogging++.h"

INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP
int main(void) {
    ELPP_INITIALIZE_SYSLOG("my_proc", LOG_PID | LOG_CONS | LOG_PERROR, LOG_USER) // This is optional, you may not add it if you dont want to specify options
    // Alternatively you may do
    // el::SysLogInitializer elSyslogInit("my_proc", LOG_PID | LOG_CONS | LOG_PERROR, LOG_USER);
    SYSLOG(INFO) << "This is syslog - read it from /var/log/syslog"
    return 0;
}

Syslog support for Easylogging++ only supports following levels; each level is corresponded with syslog priority as following

• INFO (LOG_INFO)
• DEBUG (LOG_DEBUG)
• WARNING (LOG_WARNING)
• ERROR (LOG_ERR)
• FATAL (LOG_EMERG)

Following levels are not supported and correspond to LOG_NOTICE: TRACE, whereas VERBOSE level is completely not supported

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STL Logging

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_STL_LOGGING

As mentioned earlier, with easylogging++, you can log your STL templates including most containers. In order to do so you will need to define ELPP_STL_LOGGING macro. This enables including all the necessary headers and defines all necessary functions. For performance, containers are limited to log maximum of 100 entries. This behaviour can be changed by changed header file (base::consts::kMaxLogPerContainer) but not recommended as in order to log, writer has to go through each entry causing potential delays. But if you are not really concerned with performance, you may change this value.

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Supported Templates

Following templates are supported as part of STL Logging; note: basic and primitive types e.g, std::string or long are not listed as they is supported anyway, following list only contains non-basic types e.g, containers or bitset etc.

*	*	*	*
std::vector	std::list	std::deque	std::queue
std::stack	std::priority_queue	std::set	std::multiset
std::pair	std::bitset	std::map	std::multimap

Some C++11 specific templates are supported by further explicit macro definitions; note these also need ELPP_STL_LOGGING

Template	Macro Needed
std::array	ELPP_LOG_STD_ARRAY
std::unordered_map	ELPP_LOG_UNORDERED_MAP
std::unordered_multimap	ELPP_LOG_UNORDERED_MAP
std::unordered_set	ELPP_LOG_UNORDERED_SET
std::unordered_multiset	ELPP_LOG_UNORDERED_SET

Standard manipulators are also supported, in addition std::stringstream is also supported.

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Qt Logging

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_QT_LOGGING

Easylogging++ has complete logging support for Qt core library. When enabled, this will include all the headers supported Qt logging. Once you did that, you should be good to go.

Following Qt classes and containers are supported by Easylogging++ v9.0+

*	*	*	*	*	*
QString	QByteArray	QLatin	QList	QVector	QQueue
QSet	QPair	QMap	QMultiMap	QHash	QMultiHash
QLinkedList	QStack	QChar	q[u]int[64]

Similar to STL logging, Qt containers are also limit to log 100 entries per log, you can change this behaviour by changing base::consts::kMaxLogPerContainer from header but this is not recommended as this was done for performance purposes.

Also note, if you are logging a container that contains custom class, make sure you have read Extending Library section below.

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Boost Logging

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_BOOST_LOGGING

Easylogging++ supports some of boost templates. Following table shows the templates supported.

*	*
boost::container::vector	boost::container::stable_vector
boost::container::map	boost::container::flat_map
boost::container::set	boost::container::flat_set
boost::container::deque	boost::container::list
boost::container::string

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wxWidgets Logging

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_WXWIDGETS_LOGGING

Easylogging++ supports some of wxWidgets templates.

Following table shows the templates supported.

*	*	*	*	*	*
wxString	wxVector	wxList	wxString	wxHashSet	wxHashMap

wxWidgets has its own way of declaring and defining some templates e.g, wxList where you use WX_DECLARE_LIST macro to declare a list.

In order to setup a container for logging that holds pointers to object, use ELPP_WX_PTR_ENABLED, otherwise if container holds actual object e.g, wxHashSet use ELPP_WX_ENABLED. For containers like wxHashMap because it contains value and pair, use ELPP_WX_HASH_MAP_ENABLED macro.

// wxList example
WX_DECLARE_LIST(int, MyList);
WX_DEFINE_LIST(MyList);
// Following line does the trick
ELPP_WX_PTR_ENABLED(MyList);

// wxHashSet example
WX_DECLARE_HASH_SET(int, wxIntegerHash, wxIntegerEqual, IntHashSet);
// Following line does the trick!
ELPP_WX_ENABLED(IntHashSet)

// wxHashMap example
WX_DECLARE_STRING_HASH_MAP(wxString, MyHashMap);
// Following line does the trick
ELPP_WX_HASH_MAP_ENABLED(MyHashMap)

You may also have a look at wxWidgets sample

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Extending Library

You can extend this library using various callback handlers and inheritable classes.

A perfect example of using these features is the logging server built with this library. It's called Residue that is feature rich. In fact, you may be interested in using that instead of this library for your medium to large sized projects.

Logging Your Own Class

You can log your own classes by extending el::Loggable class and implementing pure-virtual function void log(std::ostream& os) const. Following example shows a good way to extend a class.

#include "easylogging++.h"

INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP
class Integer : public el::Loggable {
public:
    Integer(int i) : m_underlyingInt(i) {
    }
    Integer& operator=(const Integer& integer) {
        m_underlyingInt = integer.m_underlyingInt;
        return *this;
    }
    // Following line does the trick!
    // Note: el::base::type::ostream_t is either std::wostream or std::ostream depending on unicode enabled or not
    virtual void log(el::base::type::ostream_t& os) const {
        os << m_underlyingInt;
    }
private:
    int m_underlyingInt;
};

int main(void) {
    Integer count = 5;
    LOG(INFO) << count;
    return 0;
}

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Logging Third-party Class

Let's say you have third-party class that you don't have access to make changes to, and it's not yet loggable. In order to make it loggable, you can use MAKE_LOGGABLE(ClassType, ClassInstance, OutputStreamInstance) to make it Easylogging++ friendly.

Following sample shows a good usage:

#include "easylogging++.h"

INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP

class Integer {
public:
    Integer(int i) : m_underlyingInt(i) {
    }
    Integer& operator=(const Integer& integer) {
        m_underlyingInt = integer.m_underlyingInt;
        return *this;
    }
    int getInt(void) const { return m_underlyingInt; }
private:
    int m_underlyingInt;
};

// Following line does the trick!
inline MAKE_LOGGABLE(Integer, integer, os) {
    os << integer.getInt();
    return os;
}
int main(void) {
    Integer count = 5;
    LOG(INFO) << count;
    return 0;
}

Another very nice example (to log std::chrono::system_clock::time_point)

inline MAKE_LOGGABLE(std::chrono::system_clock::time_point, when, os) {
    time_t t = std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_t(when);
    auto tm = std::localtime(&t);
    char buf[1024];
    strftime(buf,sizeof(buf), "%F %T (%Z)", tm);
    os << buf;
    return os;
}

This may not be practically best implementation but you get the point.

Just be careful with this as having a time-consuming overloading of log(el::base::type::ostream_t& os) and MAKE_LOGGABLE, they get called everytime class is being logged.

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Manually Flushing and Rolling Log Files

You can manually flush log files using el::Logger::flush() (to flush single logger with all referencing log files) or el::Loggers::flushAll() (to flush all log files for all levels).

If you have not set flag LoggingFlag::StrictLogFileSizeCheck for some reason, you can manually check for log files that need rolling; by using el::Helpers::validateFileRolling(el::Logger*, const el::Level&).

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Log Dispatch Callback

If you wish to capture log message right after it is dispatched, you can do so by having a class that extends el::LogDispatchCallback and implement the pure-virtual functions, then install it at anytime using el::Helpers::installLogDispatchCallback<T>(const std::string&). If you wish to uninstall a pre-installed handler with same ID, you can do so by using el::Helpers::uninstallLogDispatchCallback<T>(const std::string&)

You can use this feature to send it to custom destinations e.g, log stash or TCP client etc.

You can also look at send-to-network sample for practical usage of this.

// samples/send-to-network/network-logger.cpp

#include "easylogging++.h"

#include <boost/asio.hpp>

INITIALIZE_EASYLOGGINGPP


class Client
{
    boost::asio::io_service* io_service;
    boost::asio::ip::tcp::socket socket;

public:
    Client(boost::asio::io_service* svc, const std::string& host, const std::string& port)
        : io_service(svc), socket(*io_service)
    {
        boost::asio::ip::tcp::resolver resolver(*io_service);
        boost::asio::ip::tcp::resolver::iterator endpoint = resolver.resolve(boost::asio::ip::tcp::resolver::query(host, port));
        boost::asio::connect(this->socket, endpoint);
    };

    void send(std::string const& message) {
        socket.send(boost::asio::buffer(message));
    }
};

class NetworkDispatcher : public el::LogDispatchCallback
{
public:
    void updateServer(const std::string& host, int port) {
        m_client = std::unique_ptr<Client>(new Client(&m_svc, host, std::to_string(port)));
    }
protected:
  void handle(const el::LogDispatchData* data) noexcept override {
      m_data = data;
      // Dispatch using default log builder of logger
      dispatch(m_data->logMessage()->logger()->logBuilder()->build(m_data->logMessage(),
                 m_data->dispatchAction() == el::base::DispatchAction::NormalLog));
  }
private:
  const el::LogDispatchData* m_data;
  boost::asio::io_service m_svc;
  std::unique_ptr<Client> m_client;

  void dispatch(el::base::type::string_t&& logLine) noexcept
  {
      m_client->send(logLine);
  }
};


int main() {
    el::Helpers::installLogDispatchCallback<NetworkDispatcher>("NetworkDispatcher");
    // you can uninstall default one by
    // el::Helpers::uninstallLogDispatchCallback<el::base::DefaultLogDispatchCallback>("DefaultLogDispatchCallback");
    // Set server params
    NetworkDispatcher* dispatcher = el::Helpers::logDispatchCallback<NetworkDispatcher>("NetworkDispatcher");
    dispatcher->setEnabled(true);
    dispatcher->updateServer("127.0.0.1", 9090);

    // Start logging and normal program...
    LOG(INFO) << "First network log";

    // You can even use a different logger, say "network" and send using a different log pattern
}

DO NOT LOG ANYTHING IN THIS HANDLER OR YOU WILL END UP IN INFINITE-LOOP

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Logger Registration Callback

If you wish to capture event of logger registration (and potentially want to reconfigure this logger without changing default configuration) you can use el::LoggerRegistrationCallback. The syntax is similar to other callbacks. You can use this sample as basis.

DO NOT LOG ANYTHING IN THIS HANDLER

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Asynchronous Logging

Prerequisite: Define macro ELPP_EXPERIMENTAL_ASYNC

Asynchronous logging is in experimental stages and they are not widely promoted. You may enable and test this feature by defining macro ELPP_EXPERIMENTAL_ASYNC and if you find some issue with the feature please report in this issue. Reporting issues always help for constant improvements.

Please note:

• Asynchronous will only work with few compilers (it purely uses std::thread)
• Compiler should support std::this_thread::sleep_for. This restriction may (or may not) be removed in future (stable) version of asynchronous logging.
• You should not rely on asynchronous logging in production, this is because feature is in experimental stages.

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Helper Classes

There are static helper classes available to make it easy to do stuffs;

• el::Helpers
• el::Loggers

You can do various cool stuffs using functions in these classes, see this issue for instance.

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Contribution

Submitting Patches

You can submit patches to develop branch and we will try and merge them. Since it's based on single header, it can be sometimes difficult to merge without having merge conflicts.

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Reporting a Bug

If you have found a bug and wish to report it, feel free to do so at github issue tracker. I will try to look at it as soon as possible. Some information should be provided to make it easy to reproduce;

• Platform (OS, Compiler)
• Log file location
• Macros defined (on compilation) OR simple compilation
• Please assign issue label.

Try to provide as much information as possible. Any bug with no clear information will be ignored and closed.

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Compatibility

Easylogging++ requires a decent C++0x compliant compiler. Some compilers known to work with v9.0+ are shown in table below, for older versions please refer to readme on corresponding release at github

*****	Compiler/Platform	Notes
	GCC 4.6.4+	Stack trace logging. Very close to support GCC 4.6.0 if it had supported strong enum types casting to underlying type. It causes internal compiler error.
	Clang++ 3.1+	Stack trace logging only with gcc compliant.
	Intel C++ 13.0+	Workarounds to support: Use if instead of switch on strong enum type. No final keyword etc. Stack trace logging only with gcc compliant
	Visual C++ 11.0+	Tested with VS2012, VS2013; Use of argument templates instead of variadic templates. CRT warnings control. No stack trace logging.
	MinGW	(gcc version 4.7+) Workarounds to support: Mutex wrapper, no stack trace logging. No thread ID on windows
	TDM-GCC 4.7.1	Tested with TDM-GCC 4.7.1 32 and 64 bit compilers
	Cygwin	Tested with gcc version 4.8+
	Dev C++ 5.4+	Tested with Dev-C++ 5.4.2 using TDM-GCC 4.7.1 32 & 64-bit compilers

Operating systems that have been tested are shown in table below. Easylogging++ should work on other major operating systems that are not in the list.

*****	Operating System	Notes
	Windows 10	Tested on 64-bit, should also work on 32-bit
	Windows 8	Tested on 64-bit, should also work on 32-bit
	Windows 7	Tested on 64-bit, should also work on 32-bit
	Windows XP	Tested on 32-bit, should also work on 64-bit
	Mac OSX	Clang++ 3.1, g++ (You need -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ to successfully compile)
	Scientific Linux 6.2	Tested using Intel C++ 13.1.3 (gcc version 4.4.6 compatibility)
	Linux Mint 14	64-bit, mainly developed on this machine using all compatible linux compilers
	Fedora 19	64-bit, using g++ 4.8.1
	Ubuntu 13.04	64-bit, using g++ 4.7.3 (libstdc++6-4.7-dev)
	FreeBSD	(from github user)
	Android	Tested with C4droid (g++) on Galaxy Tab 2
	RaspberryPi 7.6	Tested with 7.6.2-1.1 (gcc version 4.9.1 (Raspbian 4.9.1-1)) by contributor
	Solaris i86	Tested by contributor
	IBM AIX	Support added by contributor

Easylogging++ has also been tested with following C++ libraries;

*****	Library	Notes
	Qt	Tested with Qt 4.6.2, Qt 5 and Qt 5.5 (with C++0x and C++11)
	Boost	Tested with boost 1.51
	wxWidgets	Tested with wxWidgets 2.9.4
	gtkmm	Tested with gtkmm 2.4

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Build Matrix

Branch	Platform	Build Status
develop	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / clang++
develop	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / g++-4.9
develop	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / g++-5
develop	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / g++-6
develop	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / g++-7
master	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / clang++
master	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / g++-4.9
master	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / g++-5
master	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / g++-6
master	GNU/Linux 4.4 / Ubuntu 4.8.4 64-bit / g++-7

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Licence

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2012-present @abumq (Majid Q.)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of
the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

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Disclaimer

Icons used in this manual (in compatibility section) are solely for information readability purposes. I do not own these icons. If anyone has issues with usage of these icon, please feel free to contact me via company's email and I will look for an alternative. Company's email address is required so that I can verify the ownership, any other email address for this purpose will be ignored.

"Pencil +" icon is Easylogging++ logo and should only be used where giving credit to Easylogging++ library.

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