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python logging

Python logging


We can track events in a software application, this is known as logging. Let’s start with a simple example, we will log a warning message.

As opposed to just printing the errors, logging can be configured to disable output or save to a file. This is a big advantage to simple printing the errors.

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Logging example

import logging

# print a log message to the console.
logging.warning('This is a warning!')

This will output:

WARNING:root:This is a warning!

We can easily output to a file:

import logging

logging.basicConfig(filename='program.log',level=logging.DEBUG)
logging.warning('An example message.')
logging.warning('Another message')

The importance of a log message depends on the severity.

Level of severity


The logger module has several levels of severity. We set the level of severity using this line of code:

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)

These are the levels of severity:

The default logging level is warning, which implies that other messages are ignored. If you want to print debug or info log messages you have to change the logging level like so:

Type Description
DEBUG Information only for problem diagnostics
INFO The program is running as expected
WARNING Indicate something went wrong
ERROR The software will no longer be able to function
CRITICAL Very serious error
import logging

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)
logging.debug('Debug message')

Time in log


You can enable time for logging using this line of code:

logging.basicConfig(format='%(asctime)s %(message)s')

An example below:

import logging

logging.basicConfig(format='%(asctime)s %(message)s', level=logging.DEBUG)
logging.info('Logging app started')
logging.warning('An example logging message.')
logging.warning('Another log message')

Output:

2015-06-25 23:24:01,153 Logging app started
2015-06-25 23:24:01,153 An example message.
2015-06-25 23:24:01,153 Another message

Related course
Python Programming Bootcamp: Go from zero to hero