How to make Rails add line numbers / time stamps to log messages? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I use tail -f to display the log file when developing my Rails app.
It shows the log messages (in color! :), which is great.
But with so much information in the 80-width console, it becomes difficult to track where a certain "set" of log messages started when, say, I clicked on a button to GET a resource.
It would be easier if there was a line number or even a time stamp at the start of each log message/line. This way I could remember that I need to start looking at the log "after line number 2365" or "after 2010/10/10 23:33:23:45".
Is this possible to do? Is there some Rails internal option for this ?

Answer 1

why don't you just edit your desired environment's log tags
development.rb
config.log_tags [ lambda {|r| DateTime.now } ]

Answer 2

If you wanted to get a time stamp:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
# ...
before_filter :log_tracker
def log_tracker
Rails.logger.add(1, "Log Date: #{DateTime.now}")
end
end
And format the date however you see fit....
That would work for Rails 2.1 +, prior you could access the ActiveSupport::Buffered log object with the constant: RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER
Get access to the actual log file with Rails.logger.instance_values["log"]
Getting the number of lines is difficult because the logger only opens the file for writing, probably for economy. I get an IOError: not opened for reading when I try.
`

Answer 3

Thanks #scaney.
I found a solution here.
I modified that code to add my own coloring highlights (for development only of course!) and now I can see things like 'parameters' in yellow in the console and I'm very pleased now!
In case someone is interested, here is the code I put at the end of environment.rb.
Here is my current (dirty) implementation. Will probably fix this up later (maybe make a gem, but for now this serves me fine)
WARNING
DIRTY CODE FOLLOWS! Use at your own risk!
module ActiveSupport
class BufferedLogger
#define the ANSI escape codes for normal and bright colors
$my_my_ansi_colors = {
:normal => "\x1B[0m",
:black => "\x1B[30m",
:red => "\x1B[31m", #red
:green => "\x1B[32m",
:yellow => "\x1B[33m",
:blue => "\x1B[34m",
:magenta => "\x1B[35m",
:cyan => "\x1B[36m",
:white => "\x1B[37m",
:bred => "\x1B[1m\x1B[31m", #bright red
:bgreen => "\x1B[1m\x1B[32m",
:byellow => "\x1B[1m\x1B[33m",
:bblue => "\x1B[1m\x1B[34m",
:bmagenta => "\x1B[1m\x1B[35m",
:bcyan => "\x1B[1m\x1B[36m",
:bwhite => "\x1B[1m\x1B[37m",
}
#take a string and using the keys in the hash, replace the keys in the
#string but surround the keys with ANSI color codes
#No idea how to retain the case of the key!(TODO someday)
def my_highlight msgx,hash
return msgx if msgx.blank?
return msgx if hash.empty?
hash.each_pair do |k,v|
if not k.nil?
msgx.gsub! Regexp.new(k, Regexp::IGNORECASE), $my_my_ansi_colors[:normal]+$my_my_ansi_colors[v]+k.upcase+$my_my_ansi_colors[:normal]
end
end
msgx
end
def add(severity, message = nil, progname = nil, &block)
return if #level > severity
message = (message || (block && block.call) || progname).to_s
#INSERT BEGINS
if not $myownglobalnumbercounter.nil?
$myownglobalnumbercounter += 1
else
$myownglobalnumbercounter = 1
end
level = {
0 => "DEBUG",
1 => "INFO",
2 => "WARN",
3 => "ERROR",
4 => "FATAL"
}[severity] || "U"
message = "\x1B[0m[%d %s] : %s" % [$myownglobalnumbercounter,level,message]
message = my_highlight message, {
"debug" => :white,
"error" => :bred,
"info" => :bwhite,
"warning" => :byellow,
"warn" => :byellow ,
"parameters" => :byellow,
"#" => :bgreen,
"ms " => :bmagenta,
"GET " => :bmagenta,
"PUT " => :bmagenta,
"POST " => :bmagenta,
"DELETE " => :bmagenta
}
#INSERT ENDS
message = "#{message}\n" unless message[-1] == ?\n
buffer << message
auto_flush
message
end
end
end