Zenlog is a Python logging tool for lazy people, meant for quick use of prettified log messages.

Usage

Don't want to stop to read the docs every time you want to have some quick logging in a hacky script you're writing? Just one line and you're good to go:

from zenlog import log

It should then be easy to get going:

log.debug("A quirky message only developers care about")
log.info("Curious users might want to know this")
log.warn("Something is wrong and any user should be informed")
log.error("Serious stuff, this is red for a reason")
log.critical("OH NO everything is on fire")

Output:

You can be as lazy as you want:

log.crit("Abbreviations are fine")
log.c("First letters also work")

A keystroke saved is a bone joint slightly spared! ;o)

Installation

Also simple:

pip install zenlog

Design rationale

Zenlog is a very light wrapper around colorlog, a wonderful library for color output in logging messages. In addition, Zenlog hides the standard library logger hierarchy, using only the root logging instance.

Isn't this dumbing down the standard logging module?

Indeed, many features of the stdlib logging module are hidden away for the sake of simplicity and sanity.

Zenlog probably won't fit many advanced uses, but it's good for quick scripts that could use easy-to-read and clear log output with a dead simple interface.

Nevertheless, it would be desirable to make use of the powerful advanced features of the logging module without introducing unnecessary complexity to the interface. Pull requests and suggestions are very welcome!

Switching from the standard logging library

It's straightforward to adapt to scripts that already make use of the standard logging library. Just change the line:

import logging

to

from zenlog import logging

And it should make your log messages more readable.

Note: This is only possible if you're directly acessing the root logger in your script -- that is, you're not using advanced features like multiple loggers or any kind of custom changes to the standard logging behavior.

Alternative Import

You can also import it like this:

try: from zenlog import log as logging 
except: import logging
logging.info("info")

That way if zenlog is not installed the standard logging moddule is used and logging still works. Or if you want to replace the default logger with zenlog without changing the code you can import it like this.

Testing

Unit tests are done using Nose:

nosetests tests.py

Missing features

Important:

• go beyond styling the errorlevel names, provide other variables like human timestamp, username, hostname...
• datetime support and other useful log output
• testing on any terminal other than uxterm
• finer-grained color control
• make it easy for any coder to change the theme to their style

Less-priority but also important:

• "theme" support, emulating some used log schemes (Xorg, Gentoo...)
• come up with a simpler template system for theming (a layer on top of the shell commands) -- a subset of CSS? See term-css for the syntax
• Use of fancy Unicode characters
• Additional sets of levels other than debug, info, etc?
• Always show line numbers on debug?