nice_logger

Nice Logger improves default Drupal logging by using a logfile instead the database as logging backend and by providing a much more concise and expressive interface over Drupal watchdog. It can also integrate with Rollbar to automatically report warnings and errors.

Requirements

PHP 5.4+

Installing

Currently Nice Logger is not available on Drupal.org yet. Until then, the recommended installation procedure is to clone the repo in your modules/devel folder and enable the module with drush:

  drush en -y nice_logger

Features

Write logs where they belong to

By default Drupal uses de Dblog module to store logs in the database. This approach makes the watchdog table grow over time and can slow down the database (and thus, the application) in moments of verbose logging.

An alternative provided in Drupal core is the Syslog module, which uses the Operating System's logging facility. As stated in the documentation this module is not suitable for shared hosting environments and requires a special system configuration.

Nice logger writes the logs into a file which can be stored where you want and inspected using less, tail, grep or any text editor.

Short, nice syntax

Drupal watchdog may receive up to five variables. Although every of them has its purpose, they make for a ugly interface. The result is something like this:

  <?php
  watchdog("", "Hi I'm an error message", [], WATCHDOG_ERROR);

Which Nice Logger transforms in something like this:

  <?php
  Log::error("Hi I'm an error message");

Both produce a line like this in the log file:

[2016-04-09T01:10:01+02:00]     ERROR -- : Hi I'm an error message

Message tagging

Nice Logger allows you to tag log messages. Tags can be specified using an array or a string. The tags are written between brakets (such as Ruby on Rails ActiveSupport::TaggedLogging) and converted to uppercase to make them stand out in logs.

For example, the following code

  <?php
  Log::info("crm", "Requesting USER 24 email");
  Log::error("api login", "Could not authenticate user in available timeframe");
  Log::emergency(["api login", "crm"], "Crm is DOWN");

will write the following lines in the log file:

[2016-04-09T01:10:23+02:00]      INFO -- : [CRM] Requesting USER 24 email
[2016-04-09T01:10:40+02:00]     ERROR -- : [API LOGIN] Could not authenticate user in available timeframe
[2016-04-09T01:11:03+02:00] EMERGENCY -- : [API LOGIN][CRM] Crm is DOWN

Expressiveness

Global constants are almost never a great idea. Nice Logger allows you to use methods instead of constants to specify the severity of the message.

• Use Log::info() instead of WATCHDOG_INFO
• Use Log::error() instead of WATCHDOG_ERROR
• Use Log::warning() instead of WATCHDOG_WARNING
• and so on... Every watchdog severity has its corresponding method.

Easy configuration

Nice Logger can be easy configured using settings.php.

To specify the log file, you must add the following line to your settings.php.

<?php
$conf['nice_logger_file'] = 'log/application.log';

Unless you specify it otherwise, Nice Logger will write logs to logs/application.log.

To specify a minimum log level, you must add the following line to your settings.php:

<?php
$conf['nice_logger_level'] = WATCHDOG_INFO;

Unless you specify it otherwise, Nice Logger will use a minimum log level of DEBUG. Log messages with a level below the minimum specified will not be written in the log.

Rollbar integration

Nice Logger can be easily integrated to automatically send error messages to Rollbar.

The first step is to download the Rollbar PHP library to the directory sites/all/libraries/rollbar of your Drupal project. After the library is installed, you only have to add the following line to your settings.php and Rollbar will start working magically.

<?php
$conf['nice_logger_rollbar_token'] = 'YOUR ACCESS TOKEN'

To stop using Rollbar you only have to delete or comment the previous line in your settings.php.

If you want to, you can also configure the environment that will appear in the Rollbar messages (the default is development).

<?php
$conf['nice_logger_rollbar_environment'] = 'development';

Missing Features

The following two features of Drupal watchdog have been kept out of Nice Logger:

• Translatable messages. Log messages are meant to live in logs. When we search a log using grep, tail, less, etc. it is useful to know what are you looking for. If a certain log message is translated we have to look for it in multiple languages, which is neither friendly or practical.
• Linkable messages. watchdog() allows to attach a link to a certain log message. Although this could be easily implemented by Nice logger, the KISS principle dominates, and it will not be implemented until a proper use-case appears.