prysm - log file colorizer
"I can write a log file colorizer in less than 100 lines."
Demian L. Neidetcher
synopsis
prysm is an excruciatingly simple log file colorizer implemented in
Python.
the itch that i am scratching is log file blindness. there are
certain log file events that are of great importance. putting a bunch of
characters or newlines in logging doesn't always get your attention and when it's
too obnoxious you have to go in and remove it from your regular logging. with
prysm you can set up rules to define the color (foreground and background)
specific lines will be displayed.
of interest might be things like opening and closing database connections, different
error levels (like in log4j DEBUG, ERROR, etc..), exceptions being thrown in
code or like on my example i have it configured to display light blue (cyan)
whenever someone accesses my resume.
i heard about a colorizer implemented in Perl
but i would sooner write code in Emacs as i would depend on something
written in Perl for my
personal productivity; after all i'm a professional (antagonist).
here's a screeny in all it's glory...
download
prysm is the actual program, color.rules is just a sample
of the rules you'll need to set up
instructions
- find yourself an
operating system
that does not suck.
i actually have run it on cygwin if the
man insists on keeping you down.
- you need to have Python installed
- put prysm somewhere in your path
- edit the color.rules file how you want it,
the program does not use regular expression just plain
old string matching. the sample color.rules file is
very self-explainitory
- place the color.rules file in the same directory that
you are going to be viewing the log files in
- prysm takes input from standard in so you need to pipe
output from a 'tail -f' to prysm, like this
tail -f log.file | prysm
- it's doing an endless loop waiting for more input from
'tail -f' so if you want to stop you need to press
control-z
license
GNU General Public License
Prysm is a colorizer implemented in Python. Using a configuration
file you can specify strings that will be highlighted by the program.
This is helpful for highlighting specific entries for logging.
Copyright (C) 2002 Demian L. Neidetcher
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
possible enhancements
- color.rules takes regular expression syntax for the string
- color.rules can be in a different directory
- prysm takes as an argument the location of a specific
color.rules file.
- allow for bold, blinking, etc... as options
- if more than 1 rule applies to a line then the line is repeated for
each rule, this probably isn't the desired effect, maybe do the first
rule on the color.rules file