kristiandelay / chromelogger-cf

ColdFusion component for logging variables to Google Chrome console.

Overview

ColdFusion component for logging variables to Google Chrome console using the Chrome Logger extension, found at http://chromelogger.com.

This component is only intended to be used in a development environment.

Requirements

CF 9 or 10. Untested in Railo/Open BD.

Installation

1. Install the Chrome Logger extension.

2. Click the Chrome Logger icon to enable logging.

3. Stick chromelogger.cfc somewhere that it can be instantiated.

4. Instantiate chromelogger.cfc.

5. Start logging!

   <cfscript>
   console = new chromelogger.chromelogger();
   console.log( "Logging some data!" );
   console.error( "This is an error.." );
   console.log({ "It logs more" = "than just strings." });
   </cfscript>

Usage

Note: Please disregard <cfscript/> tags in the following code examples; They're only there because GitHub doesn't like to syntax highlight cfscript without them.

Options

chromelogger-cf can be instantiated with a few different options:

<cfscript>
console = new chromelogger.chromelogger( autoWriteHeader = true, convertObjects = true );
</cfscript>

1. autoWriteHeader - If true, automatically sets the header at the end of each .log() call. ColdFusion 9 users should set this to false due to a bug in CF9 that prevents setHeader from overwriting a header with the same name. If true, the header will have to be set manually at the end of the request - see the example below.
2. convertObjects - Because serializeJSON() is mediocre at best for serializing objects, the convert() method is utilized to create a struct representation of a given object. Some users may prefer the default behavior of serializeJSON(), so chromelogger can be instantiated with convertObjects = false to prevent the conversion.

Manually Setting Header

For CF9, the X-ChromeLogger-Data header must be set manually. My preferred method of doing so is via onRequestEnd.

<cfscript>
component {

	function onRequestStart() {

		request.chromelogger = new chromelogger.chromelogger( autoWriteHeader = false );

	}

	// ...

	function onRequestEnd() {

		request.chromelogger.writeHeader();

	}

}
</cfscript>

Using chromelogger as a Singleton

chromelogger should generally be treated as a singleton in the context of the request, but as a transient in the context of the application. The logged items are stored in the variables scope of the component, so it's important that this data is flushed out at the end of each request or the logged data will eventually become too large for Chrome to handle in a single header. If chromelogger must be used as an application singleton, an extra step must be taken to reset the data after each request.

<cfscript>
component {

	function onApplicationStart() {

		application.chromelogger = new chromelogger.chromelogger();

	}

	// ...

	function onRequestEnd() {

		application.chromelogger.reset();

	}

}
</cfscript>

API

The following methods are available from chromelogger.cfc:

chromelogger.log()

Logs all passed arguments to the Chrome console with a severity of "log."

chromelogger.warn()

Logs all passed arguments to the Chrome console with a severity of "warn."

chromelogger.error()

Logs all passed arguments to the Chrome console with a severity of "error."

chromelogger.group( groupLabel )

Begins a group log. Should be followed by calls to log(), warn(), and/or error(), and then closed via groupEnd().

chromelogger.groupCollapsed( groupLabel )

Begins a collapsed group log. Should be followed by calls to log(), warn(), and/or error(), and then closed via groupEnd().

chromelogger.groupEnd()

Ends a group or collapsed group.

chromelogger.writeHeader()

Sets the X-ChromeLogger-Data header.

chromelogger.reset()

Removes all data that has been logged.

Thanks

Thanks to the following repos for inspiration:

• chromephp
• chromelogger-python