25/04/2019 Introduction into Logging with Loguru - CodeProject

Introduction into Logging with Loguru

thoughts-on-cpp, 13 Mar 2019

Introduction into Logging with lightweight and Thread-Safe Loguru

This time, I would like to give a short introduction into a nice little library I just encountered. It’s called loguru and it’s a lightweight,
Thread-Safe, logging library with an impressive well written documentation and human-readable output.

To use it, all you need to do is to add a single header and source file to compile with. Unfortunately, that’s, in my opinion, also a
drawback. Yes, it’s easier to install and usable in training, but it can’t be exchanged by whoever is operating the system after
deployment. In such cases, where the operator wants to define how and what to use for logging, a generic logging interface (facade
pattern), such as slf4cxx which is similar to its Java pendant slf4j, would be preferable.

Loguru is supporting a various features such as callbacks for logging and fatal errors, verbosity levels, assertions and aborts, and
stack traces in case of aborts. It even supports {fmt}. Everyone who ever was used to java/spring log outputs will recognize its
similarities.

#include <thread>
#include "loguru.hpp"
#include "loguru.cpp"

void sleep(int ms)

{
//We can also inject parameters into the logging strings
VLOG_F(0, "Sleeping for %d ms", ms);
std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::milliseconds(ms));
}

void complex()
{
//LOG_SCOPE_F is indenting the following logs
LOG_SCOPE_F(INFO, "Preparing complex calculation");

//VLOG_F can take a dynamic defined verbosity level

VLOG_F(0, "Heating up CPU");
sleep(500);
std::thread([](){
loguru::set_thread_name("complex lambda");

const bool value = true;

LOG_IF_F(INFO, value, "This log is printed inside another thread");
}).join();
}

void crashingFunction(int index)

{
//ERROR_CONTEXT is logging certain arguments in case of a crash
ERROR_CONTEXT("Computing with index", index);

//Asserts are also possible

std::vector<std::string> list;
CHECK_F(index > 1, "Oh no, wrong index, index is %d!!", index);
}

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int main(int argc, char* argv[])

{
//Time stamping begin of logging and we can forward cli parameters
//such as -v (verbosity level) to loguru
loguru::init(argc, argv);

//Additionally, if we need we can also put the logs into a defined file
loguru::add_file("important.log", loguru::Truncate, loguru::Verbosity_INFO);

LOG_F(INFO, "We are starting our complex threaded computation!");

complex();
LOG_F(INFO, "Complex computation done!");

crashingFunction(-1);

return 0;
}

date time ( uptime ) [ thread name/id ] file:line v|

2019-03-11 21:46:14.591 ( 0.000s) [main thread ] loguru.cpp:587 INFO|
arguments: /mnt/c/Develop/LoggingWithLoguru/cmake-build-debug-wsl/LoggingWithLoguru
2019-03-11 21:46:14.591 ( 0.000s) [main thread ] loguru.cpp:590 INFO|
Current dir: /mnt/c/Develop/LoggingWithLoguru/cmake-build-debug-wsl
2019-03-11 21:46:14.591 ( 0.000s) [main thread ] loguru.cpp:592 INFO|
stderr verbosity: 0
2019-03-11 21:46:14.592 ( 0.000s) [main thread ] loguru.cpp:593 INFO| -----
------------------------------
2019-03-11 21:46:14.592 ( 0.001s) [main thread ] loguru.cpp:751 INFO|
Logging to 'important.log', mode: 'w', verbosity: 0
2019-03-11 21:46:14.592 ( 0.001s) [main thread ] main.cpp:47 INFO| We
are starting our complex threaded computation!
2019-03-11 21:46:14.592 ( 0.001s) [main thread ] main.cpp:15 INFO| {
Preparing complex calculation
2019-03-11 21:46:14.592 ( 0.001s) [main thread ] main.cpp:18 INFO| .
Heating up CPU
2019-03-11 21:46:14.592 ( 0.001s) [main thread ] main.cpp:8 INFO| .
Sleeping for 500 ms
2019-03-11 21:46:15.094 ( 0.502s) [complex lambda ] main.cpp:25 INFO| .
This log is printed inside another thread
2019-03-11 21:46:15.094 ( 0.503s) [main thread ] main.cpp:15 INFO| }
0.502 s: Preparing complex calculation
2019-03-11 21:46:15.094 ( 0.503s) [main thread ] main.cpp:49 INFO|
Complex computation done!
Stack trace:
3 0x7ff08b806a7a /mnt/c/Develop/LoggingWithLoguru/cmake-build-debug-
wsl/LoggingWithLoguru(+0x6a7a) [0x7ff08b806a7a]
2 0x7ff08a641b97 __libc_start_main + 231
1 0x7ff08b80cfb5 /mnt/c/Develop/LoggingWithLoguru/cmake-build-debug-
wsl/LoggingWithLoguru(+0xcfb5) [0x7ff08b80cfb5]
0 0x7ff08b80ceb5 /mnt/c/Develop/LoggingWithLoguru/cmake-build-debug-
wsl/LoggingWithLoguru(+0xceb5) [0x7ff08b80ceb5]
------------------------------------------------
[ErrorContext] main.cpp:32 Computing with index: -1
------------------------------------------------
2019-03-11 21:46:15.094 ( 0.503s) [main thread ] main.cpp:36 FATL| CHECK
FAILED: index > 1 Oh no, wrong index, index is -1!!
bash: line 1: 2324 Aborted (core dumped) env "JETBRAINS_REMOTE_RUN"="1"
'/mnt/c/Develop/LoggingWithLoguru/cmake-build-debug-wsl/LoggingWithLoguru'

Process finished with exit code 134

As you can see, it’s pretty straight forward to use. We are not only logging several messages on INFO verbosity level, but also a
message in a named thread called “complex lambda”. If we wouldn’t have defined the thread name with
loguru::set_thread_name(“complex lambda”), loguru would state the name of a thread with a hex id. The main
thread gets its name by calling loguru::init(…). Because our small tool is crashing, loguru is printing us a stack trace which
in my opinion is not as helpful as expected, but with ERROR_CONTEXT, we get a little better output.

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25/04/2019 Introduction into Logging with Loguru - CodeProject

That’s it for now with this post. We have now a short introduction into a, until now, rather unknown, but promising, logging library.
Loguru is not only capable of producing Thread-Safe and human readable logging messages but also provides a very simple and
handy interface to use.

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This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

About the Author

thoughts-on-cpp
Team Leader KISSsoft AG
Switzerland

Passionate C++ developer, mechanical engineer, Head of Software Development at KISSsoft AG and host of https://thoughs-on-
cpp.com

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