nmalkin / sclog

Python logging helper with convenient defaults and colorized output for the logs

sclog - simple colorized log

Rationale

Python has a pretty convenient logging framework built-in, which makes it super easy to get started:

import logging

logging.warning("That was easy")

Or, if you have a few different files in your project and want to distinguish between them:

import logging

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

logger.error("Uh oh, something bad happened")

But, there are a few annoyances.

First, as the documentation explains, debug and info messages aren't shown with the default log level. Want to add a quick logging.debug message to your scripts? You'll need to configure a log formatter first.

Second, the default log formatting is missing some information like the timestamp. The default output looks something like this:

WARNING:root:your warning message

...and if you want it to look differently, you again need a custom formatter.

This library

This library exists, to be honest, for my own convenience. Its purpose it to provide some useful (to me) defaults as a very light-weight layer on top of Python's default logging framework. Specifically, it:

1. Sets the default log level to DEBUG
2. Uses a formatter that includes the timestamp
3. (Optionally) colorizes the output using colorlog (another task that normally requires creating a custom formatter)

Usage

The "API" for this library is meant to be maximally compatible with the built-in logging API. Like Python's logging module, it exposes a getLogger function that you call with a string (the name). This returns a standard Logger object that you use in a familiar way.

from sclog import getLogger

logger = getLogger(__name__)

logger.info("Hello, %s!", "world")

This outputs (in a nice green color):

2021-01-01 00:00:00:00,000 - __main__ - DEBUG - Hello, world!

Installation

pip install sclog
pip install colorlog  # optional, include if you want colors

You can also just copy the file into your own project.