.. _logging-cookbook: ================ Logging Cookbook ================ :Author: Vinay Sajip This page contains a number of recipes related to logging, which have been found useful in the past. .. currentmodule:: logging Using logging in multiple modules --------------------------------- Multiple calls to ``logging.getLogger('someLogger')`` return a reference to the same logger object. This is true not only within the same module, but also across modules as long as it is in the same Python interpreter process. It is true for references to the same object; additionally, application code can define and configure a parent logger in one module and create (but not configure) a child logger in a separate module, and all logger calls to the child will pass up to the parent. Here is a main module:: import logging import auxiliary_module # create logger with 'spam_application' logger = logging.getLogger('spam_application') logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # create file handler which logs even debug messages fh = logging.FileHandler('spam.log') fh.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # create console handler with a higher log level ch = logging.StreamHandler() ch.setLevel(logging.ERROR) # create formatter and add it to the handlers formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s') fh.setFormatter(formatter) ch.setFormatter(formatter) # add the handlers to the logger logger.addHandler(fh) logger.addHandler(ch) logger.info('creating an instance of auxiliary_module.Auxiliary') a = auxiliary_module.Auxiliary() logger.info('created an instance of auxiliary_module.Auxiliary') logger.info('calling auxiliary_module.Auxiliary.do_something') a.do_something() logger.info('finished auxiliary_module.Auxiliary.do_something') logger.info('calling auxiliary_module.some_function()') auxiliary_module.some_function() logger.info('done with auxiliary_module.some_function()') Here is the auxiliary module:: import logging # create logger module_logger = logging.getLogger('spam_application.auxiliary') class Auxiliary: def __init__(self): self.logger = logging.getLogger('spam_application.auxiliary.Auxiliary') self.logger.info('creating an instance of Auxiliary') def do_something(self): self.logger.info('doing something') a = 1 + 1 self.logger.info('done doing something') def some_function(): module_logger.info('received a call to "some_function"') The output looks like this:: 2005-03-23 23:47:11,663 - spam_application - INFO - creating an instance of auxiliary_module.Auxiliary 2005-03-23 23:47:11,665 - spam_application.auxiliary.Auxiliary - INFO - creating an instance of Auxiliary 2005-03-23 23:47:11,665 - spam_application - INFO - created an instance of auxiliary_module.Auxiliary 2005-03-23 23:47:11,668 - spam_application - INFO - calling auxiliary_module.Auxiliary.do_something 2005-03-23 23:47:11,668 - spam_application.auxiliary.Auxiliary - INFO - doing something 2005-03-23 23:47:11,669 - spam_application.auxiliary.Auxiliary - INFO - done doing something 2005-03-23 23:47:11,670 - spam_application - INFO - finished auxiliary_module.Auxiliary.do_something 2005-03-23 23:47:11,671 - spam_application - INFO - calling auxiliary_module.some_function() 2005-03-23 23:47:11,672 - spam_application.auxiliary - INFO - received a call to 'some_function' 2005-03-23 23:47:11,673 - spam_application - INFO - done with auxiliary_module.some_function() Multiple handlers and formatters -------------------------------- Loggers are plain Python objects. The :meth:`~Logger.addHandler` method has no minimum or maximum quota for the number of handlers you may add. Sometimes it will be beneficial for an application to log all messages of all severities to a text file while simultaneously logging errors or above to the console. To set this up, simply configure the appropriate handlers. The logging calls in the application code will remain unchanged. Here is a slight modification to the previous simple module-based configuration example:: import logging logger = logging.getLogger('simple_example') logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # create file handler which logs even debug messages fh = logging.FileHandler('spam.log') fh.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # create console handler with a higher log level ch = logging.StreamHandler() ch.setLevel(logging.ERROR) # create formatter and add it to the handlers formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s') ch.setFormatter(formatter) fh.setFormatter(formatter) # add the handlers to logger logger.addHandler(ch) logger.addHandler(fh) # 'application' code logger.debug('debug message') logger.info('info message') logger.warn('warn message') logger.error('error message') logger.critical('critical message') Notice that the 'application' code does not care about multiple handlers. All that changed was the addition and configuration of a new handler named *fh*. The ability to create new handlers with higher- or lower-severity filters can be very helpful when writing and testing an application. Instead of using many ``print`` statements for debugging, use ``logger.debug``: Unlike the print statements, which you will have to delete or comment out later, the logger.debug statements can remain intact in the source code and remain dormant until you need them again. At that time, the only change that needs to happen is to modify the severity level of the logger and/or handler to debug. .. _multiple-destinations: Logging to multiple destinations -------------------------------- Let's say you want to log to console and file with different message formats and in differing circumstances. Say you want to log messages with levels of DEBUG and higher to file, and those messages at level INFO and higher to the console. Let's also assume that the file should contain timestamps, but the console messages should not. Here's how you can achieve this:: import logging # set up logging to file - see previous section for more details logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG, format='%(asctime)s %(name)-12s %(levelname)-8s %(message)s', datefmt='%m-%d %H:%M', filename='/temp/myapp.log', filemode='w') # define a Handler which writes INFO messages or higher to the sys.stderr console = logging.StreamHandler() console.setLevel(logging.INFO) # set a format which is simpler for console use formatter = logging.Formatter('%(name)-12s: %(levelname)-8s %(message)s') # tell the handler to use this format console.setFormatter(formatter) # add the handler to the root logger logging.getLogger('').addHandler(console) # Now, we can log to the root logger, or any other logger. First the root... logging.info('Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.') # Now, define a couple of other loggers which might represent areas in your # application: logger1 = logging.getLogger('myapp.area1') logger2 = logging.getLogger('myapp.area2') logger1.debug('Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.') logger1.info('How quickly daft jumping zebras vex.') logger2.warning('Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack.') logger2.error('The five boxing wizards jump quickly.') When you run this, on the console you will see :: root : INFO Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. myapp.area1 : INFO How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. myapp.area2 : WARNING Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack. myapp.area2 : ERROR The five boxing wizards jump quickly. and in the file you will see something like :: 10-22 22:19 root INFO Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. 10-22 22:19 myapp.area1 DEBUG Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim. 10-22 22:19 myapp.area1 INFO How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. 10-22 22:19 myapp.area2 WARNING Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack. 10-22 22:19 myapp.area2 ERROR The five boxing wizards jump quickly. As you can see, the DEBUG message only shows up in the file. The other messages are sent to both destinations. This example uses console and file handlers, but you can use any number and combination of handlers you choose. Configuration server example ---------------------------- Here is an example of a module using the logging configuration server:: import logging import logging.config import time import os # read initial config file logging.config.fileConfig('logging.conf') # create and start listener on port 9999 t = logging.config.listen(9999) t.start() logger = logging.getLogger('simpleExample') try: # loop through logging calls to see the difference # new configurations make, until Ctrl+C is pressed while True: logger.debug('debug message') logger.info('info message') logger.warn('warn message') logger.error('error message') logger.critical('critical message') time.sleep(5) except KeyboardInterrupt: # cleanup logging.config.stopListening() t.join() And here is a script that takes a filename and sends that file to the server, properly preceded with the binary-encoded length, as the new logging configuration:: #!/usr/bin/env python import socket, sys, struct with open(sys.argv[1], 'rb') as f: data_to_send = f.read() HOST = 'localhost' PORT = 9999 s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) print('connecting...') s.connect((HOST, PORT)) print('sending config...') s.send(struct.pack('>L', len(data_to_send))) s.send(data_to_send) s.close() print('complete') Dealing with handlers that block -------------------------------- .. currentmodule:: logging.handlers Sometimes you have to get your logging handlers to do their work without blocking the thread you're logging from. This is common in Web applications, though of course it also occurs in other scenarios. A common culprit which demonstrates sluggish behaviour is the :class:`SMTPHandler`: sending emails can take a long time, for a number of reasons outside the developer's control (for example, a poorly performing mail or network infrastructure). But almost any network-based handler can block: Even a :class:`SocketHandler` operation may do a DNS query under the hood which is too slow (and this query can be deep in the socket library code, below the Python layer, and outside your control). One solution is to use a two-part approach. For the first part, attach only a :class:`QueueHandler` to those loggers which are accessed from performance-critical threads. They simply write to their queue, which can be sized to a large enough capacity or initialized with no upper bound to their size. The write to the queue will typically be accepted quickly, though you will probably need to catch the :exc:`queue.Full` exception as a precaution in your code. If you are a library developer who has performance-critical threads in their code, be sure to document this (together with a suggestion to attach only ``QueueHandlers`` to your loggers) for the benefit of other developers who will use your code. The second part of the solution is :class:`QueueListener`, which has been designed as the counterpart to :class:`QueueHandler`. A :class:`QueueListener` is very simple: it's passed a queue and some handlers, and it fires up an internal thread which listens to its queue for LogRecords sent from ``QueueHandlers`` (or any other source of ``LogRecords``, for that matter). The ``LogRecords`` are removed from the queue and passed to the handlers for processing. The advantage of having a separate :class:`QueueListener` class is that you can use the same instance to service multiple ``QueueHandlers``. This is more resource-friendly than, say, having threaded versions of the existing handler classes, which would eat up one thread per handler for no particular benefit. An example of using these two classes follows (imports omitted):: que = queue.Queue(-1) # no limit on size queue_handler = QueueHandler(que) handler = logging.StreamHandler() listener = QueueListener(que, handler) root = logging.getLogger() root.addHandler(queue_handler) formatter = logging.Formatter('%(threadName)s: %(message)s') handler.setFormatter(formatter) listener.start() # The log output will display the thread which generated # the event (the main thread) rather than the internal # thread which monitors the internal queue. This is what # you want to happen. root.warning('Look out!') listener.stop() which, when run, will produce:: MainThread: Look out! .. _network-logging: Sending and receiving logging events across a network ----------------------------------------------------- Let's say you want to send logging events across a network, and handle them at the receiving end. A simple way of doing this is attaching a :class:`SocketHandler` instance to the root logger at the sending end:: import logging, logging.handlers rootLogger = logging.getLogger('') rootLogger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) socketHandler = logging.handlers.SocketHandler('localhost', logging.handlers.DEFAULT_TCP_LOGGING_PORT) # don't bother with a formatter, since a socket handler sends the event as # an unformatted pickle rootLogger.addHandler(socketHandler) # Now, we can log to the root logger, or any other logger. First the root... logging.info('Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.') # Now, define a couple of other loggers which might represent areas in your # application: logger1 = logging.getLogger('myapp.area1') logger2 = logging.getLogger('myapp.area2') logger1.debug('Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.') logger1.info('How quickly daft jumping zebras vex.') logger2.warning('Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack.') logger2.error('The five boxing wizards jump quickly.') At the receiving end, you can set up a receiver using the :mod:`socketserver` module. Here is a basic working example:: import pickle import logging import logging.handlers import socketserver import struct class LogRecordStreamHandler(socketserver.StreamRequestHandler): """Handler for a streaming logging request. This basically logs the record using whatever logging policy is configured locally. """ def handle(self): """ Handle multiple requests - each expected to be a 4-byte length, followed by the LogRecord in pickle format. Logs the record according to whatever policy is configured locally. """ while True: chunk = self.connection.recv(4) if len(chunk) < 4: break slen = struct.unpack('>L', chunk)[0] chunk = self.connection.recv(slen) while len(chunk) < slen: chunk = chunk + self.connection.recv(slen - len(chunk)) obj = self.unPickle(chunk) record = logging.makeLogRecord(obj) self.handleLogRecord(record) def unPickle(self, data): return pickle.loads(data) def handleLogRecord(self, record): # if a name is specified, we use the named logger rather than the one # implied by the record. if self.server.logname is not None: name = self.server.logname else: name = record.name logger = logging.getLogger(name) # N.B. EVERY record gets logged. This is because Logger.handle # is normally called AFTER logger-level filtering. If you want # to do filtering, do it at the client end to save wasting # cycles and network bandwidth! logger.handle(record) class LogRecordSocketReceiver(socketserver.ThreadingTCPServer): """ Simple TCP socket-based logging receiver suitable for testing. """ allow_reuse_address = 1 def __init__(self, host='localhost', port=logging.handlers.DEFAULT_TCP_LOGGING_PORT, handler=LogRecordStreamHandler): socketserver.ThreadingTCPServer.__init__(self, (host, port), handler) self.abort = 0 self.timeout = 1 self.logname = None def serve_until_stopped(self): import select abort = 0 while not abort: rd, wr, ex = select.select([self.socket.fileno()], [], [], self.timeout) if rd: self.handle_request() abort = self.abort def main(): logging.basicConfig( format='%(relativeCreated)5d %(name)-15s %(levelname)-8s %(message)s') tcpserver = LogRecordSocketReceiver() print('About to start TCP server...') tcpserver.serve_until_stopped() if __name__ == '__main__': main() First run the server, and then the client. On the client side, nothing is printed on the console; on the server side, you should see something like:: About to start TCP server... 59 root INFO Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. 59 myapp.area1 DEBUG Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim. 69 myapp.area1 INFO How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. 69 myapp.area2 WARNING Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack. 69 myapp.area2 ERROR The five boxing wizards jump quickly. Note that there are some security issues with pickle in some scenarios. If these affect you, you can use an alternative serialization scheme by overriding the :meth:`~handlers.SocketHandler.makePickle` method and implementing your alternative there, as well as adapting the above script to use your alternative serialization. .. _context-info: Adding contextual information to your logging output ---------------------------------------------------- Sometimes you want logging output to contain contextual information in addition to the parameters passed to the logging call. For example, in a networked application, it may be desirable to log client-specific information in the log (e.g. remote client's username, or IP address). Although you could use the *extra* parameter to achieve this, it's not always convenient to pass the information in this way. While it might be tempting to create :class:`Logger` instances on a per-connection basis, this is not a good idea because these instances are not garbage collected. While this is not a problem in practice, when the number of :class:`Logger` instances is dependent on the level of granularity you want to use in logging an application, it could be hard to manage if the number of :class:`Logger` instances becomes effectively unbounded. Using LoggerAdapters to impart contextual information ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ An easy way in which you can pass contextual information to be output along with logging event information is to use the :class:`LoggerAdapter` class. This class is designed to look like a :class:`Logger`, so that you can call :meth:`debug`, :meth:`info`, :meth:`warning`, :meth:`error`, :meth:`exception`, :meth:`critical` and :meth:`log`. These methods have the same signatures as their counterparts in :class:`Logger`, so you can use the two types of instances interchangeably. When you create an instance of :class:`LoggerAdapter`, you pass it a :class:`Logger` instance and a dict-like object which contains your contextual information. When you call one of the logging methods on an instance of :class:`LoggerAdapter`, it delegates the call to the underlying instance of :class:`Logger` passed to its constructor, and arranges to pass the contextual information in the delegated call. Here's a snippet from the code of :class:`LoggerAdapter`:: def debug(self, msg, *args, **kwargs): """ Delegate a debug call to the underlying logger, after adding contextual information from this adapter instance. """ msg, kwargs = self.process(msg, kwargs) self.logger.debug(msg, *args, **kwargs) The :meth:`~LoggerAdapter.process` method of :class:`LoggerAdapter` is where the contextual information is added to the logging output. It's passed the message and keyword arguments of the logging call, and it passes back (potentially) modified versions of these to use in the call to the underlying logger. The default implementation of this method leaves the message alone, but inserts an 'extra' key in the keyword argument whose value is the dict-like object passed to the constructor. Of course, if you had passed an 'extra' keyword argument in the call to the adapter, it will be silently overwritten. The advantage of using 'extra' is that the values in the dict-like object are merged into the :class:`LogRecord` instance's __dict__, allowing you to use customized strings with your :class:`Formatter` instances which know about the keys of the dict-like object. If you need a different method, e.g. if you want to prepend or append the contextual information to the message string, you just need to subclass :class:`LoggerAdapter` and override :meth:`~LoggerAdapter.process` to do what you need. Here is a simple example:: class CustomAdapter(logging.LoggerAdapter): """ This example adapter expects the passed in dict-like object to have a 'connid' key, whose value in brackets is prepended to the log message. """ def process(self, msg, kwargs): return '[%s] %s' % (self.extra['connid'], msg), kwargs which you can use like this:: logger = logging.getLogger(__name__) adapter = CustomAdapter(logger, {'connid': some_conn_id}) Then any events that you log to the adapter will have the value of ``some_conn_id`` prepended to the log messages. Using objects other than dicts to pass contextual information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You don't need to pass an actual dict to a :class:`LoggerAdapter` - you could pass an instance of a class which implements ``__getitem__`` and ``__iter__`` so that it looks like a dict to logging. This would be useful if you want to generate values dynamically (whereas the values in a dict would be constant). .. _filters-contextual: Using Filters to impart contextual information ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You can also add contextual information to log output using a user-defined :class:`Filter`. ``Filter`` instances are allowed to modify the ``LogRecords`` passed to them, including adding additional attributes which can then be output using a suitable format string, or if needed a custom :class:`Formatter`. For example in a web application, the request being processed (or at least, the interesting parts of it) can be stored in a threadlocal (:class:`threading.local`) variable, and then accessed from a ``Filter`` to add, say, information from the request - say, the remote IP address and remote user's username - to the ``LogRecord``, using the attribute names 'ip' and 'user' as in the ``LoggerAdapter`` example above. In that case, the same format string can be used to get similar output to that shown above. Here's an example script:: import logging from random import choice class ContextFilter(logging.Filter): """ This is a filter which injects contextual information into the log. Rather than use actual contextual information, we just use random data in this demo. """ USERS = ['jim', 'fred', 'sheila'] IPS = ['123.231.231.123', '127.0.0.1', '192.168.0.1'] def filter(self, record): record.ip = choice(ContextFilter.IPS) record.user = choice(ContextFilter.USERS) return True if __name__ == '__main__': levels = (logging.DEBUG, logging.INFO, logging.WARNING, logging.ERROR, logging.CRITICAL) logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG, format='%(asctime)-15s %(name)-5s %(levelname)-8s IP: %(ip)-15s User: %(user)-8s %(message)s') a1 = logging.getLogger('a.b.c') a2 = logging.getLogger('d.e.f') f = ContextFilter() a1.addFilter(f) a2.addFilter(f) a1.debug('A debug message') a1.info('An info message with %s', 'some parameters') for x in range(10): lvl = choice(levels) lvlname = logging.getLevelName(lvl) a2.log(lvl, 'A message at %s level with %d %s', lvlname, 2, 'parameters') which, when run, produces something like:: 2010-09-06 22:38:15,292 a.b.c DEBUG IP: 123.231.231.123 User: fred A debug message 2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 a.b.c INFO IP: 192.168.0.1 User: sheila An info message with some parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f CRITICAL IP: 127.0.0.1 User: sheila A message at CRITICAL level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f ERROR IP: 127.0.0.1 User: jim A message at ERROR level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f DEBUG IP: 127.0.0.1 User: sheila A message at DEBUG level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f ERROR IP: 123.231.231.123 User: fred A message at ERROR level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f CRITICAL IP: 192.168.0.1 User: jim A message at CRITICAL level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f CRITICAL IP: 127.0.0.1 User: sheila A message at CRITICAL level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f DEBUG IP: 192.168.0.1 User: jim A message at DEBUG level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,301 d.e.f ERROR IP: 127.0.0.1 User: sheila A message at ERROR level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,301 d.e.f DEBUG IP: 123.231.231.123 User: fred A message at DEBUG level with 2 parameters 2010-09-06 22:38:15,301 d.e.f INFO IP: 123.231.231.123 User: fred A message at INFO level with 2 parameters .. _multiple-processes: Logging to a single file from multiple processes ------------------------------------------------ Although logging is thread-safe, and logging to a single file from multiple threads in a single process *is* supported, logging to a single file from *multiple processes* is *not* supported, because there is no standard way to serialize access to a single file across multiple processes in Python. If you need to log to a single file from multiple processes, one way of doing this is to have all the processes log to a :class:`~handlers.SocketHandler`, and have a separate process which implements a socket server which reads from the socket and logs to file. (If you prefer, you can dedicate one thread in one of the existing processes to perform this function.) :ref:`This section ` documents this approach in more detail and includes a working socket receiver which can be used as a starting point for you to adapt in your own applications. If you are using a recent version of Python which includes the :mod:`multiprocessing` module, you could write your own handler which uses the :class:`~multiprocessing.Lock` class from this module to serialize access to the file from your processes. The existing :class:`FileHandler` and subclasses do not make use of :mod:`multiprocessing` at present, though they may do so in the future. Note that at present, the :mod:`multiprocessing` module does not provide working lock functionality on all platforms (see http://bugs.python.org/issue3770). .. currentmodule:: logging.handlers Alternatively, you can use a ``Queue`` and a :class:`QueueHandler` to send all logging events to one of the processes in your multi-process application. The following example script demonstrates how you can do this; in the example a separate listener process listens for events sent by other processes and logs them according to its own logging configuration. Although the example only demonstrates one way of doing it (for example, you may want to use a listener thread rather than a separate listener process -- the implementation would be analogous) it does allow for completely different logging configurations for the listener and the other processes in your application, and can be used as the basis for code meeting your own specific requirements:: # You'll need these imports in your own code import logging import logging.handlers import multiprocessing # Next two import lines for this demo only from random import choice, random import time # # Because you'll want to define the logging configurations for listener and workers, the # listener and worker process functions take a configurer parameter which is a callable # for configuring logging for that process. These functions are also passed the queue, # which they use for communication. # # In practice, you can configure the listener however you want, but note that in this # simple example, the listener does not apply level or filter logic to received records. # In practice, you would probably want to do this logic in the worker processes, to avoid # sending events which would be filtered out between processes. # # The size of the rotated files is made small so you can see the results easily. def listener_configurer(): root = logging.getLogger() h = logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler('mptest.log', 'a', 300, 10) f = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s %(processName)-10s %(name)s %(levelname)-8s %(message)s') h.setFormatter(f) root.addHandler(h) # This is the listener process top-level loop: wait for logging events # (LogRecords)on the queue and handle them, quit when you get a None for a # LogRecord. def listener_process(queue, configurer): configurer() while True: try: record = queue.get() if record is None: # We send this as a sentinel to tell the listener to quit. break logger = logging.getLogger(record.name) logger.handle(record) # No level or filter logic applied - just do it! except (KeyboardInterrupt, SystemExit): raise except: import sys, traceback print('Whoops! Problem:', file=sys.stderr) traceback.print_exc(file=sys.stderr) # Arrays used for random selections in this demo LEVELS = [logging.DEBUG, logging.INFO, logging.WARNING, logging.ERROR, logging.CRITICAL] LOGGERS = ['a.b.c', 'd.e.f'] MESSAGES = [ 'Random message #1', 'Random message #2', 'Random message #3', ] # The worker configuration is done at the start of the worker process run. # Note that on Windows you can't rely on fork semantics, so each process # will run the logging configuration code when it starts. def worker_configurer(queue): h = logging.handlers.QueueHandler(queue) # Just the one handler needed root = logging.getLogger() root.addHandler(h) root.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # send all messages, for demo; no other level or filter logic applied. # This is the worker process top-level loop, which just logs ten events with # random intervening delays before terminating. # The print messages are just so you know it's doing something! def worker_process(queue, configurer): configurer(queue) name = multiprocessing.current_process().name print('Worker started: %s' % name) for i in range(10): time.sleep(random()) logger = logging.getLogger(choice(LOGGERS)) level = choice(LEVELS) message = choice(MESSAGES) logger.log(level, message) print('Worker finished: %s' % name) # Here's where the demo gets orchestrated. Create the queue, create and start # the listener, create ten workers and start them, wait for them to finish, # then send a None to the queue to tell the listener to finish. def main(): queue = multiprocessing.Queue(-1) listener = multiprocessing.Process(target=listener_process, args=(queue, listener_configurer)) listener.start() workers = [] for i in range(10): worker = multiprocessing.Process(target=worker_process, args=(queue, worker_configurer)) workers.append(worker) worker.start() for w in workers: w.join() queue.put_nowait(None) listener.join() if __name__ == '__main__': main() A variant of the above script keeps the logging in the main process, in a separate thread:: import logging import logging.config import logging.handlers from multiprocessing import Process, Queue import random import threading import time def logger_thread(q): while True: record = q.get() if record is None: break logger = logging.getLogger(record.name) logger.handle(record) def worker_process(q): qh = logging.handlers.QueueHandler(q) root = logging.getLogger() root.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) root.addHandler(qh) levels = [logging.DEBUG, logging.INFO, logging.WARNING, logging.ERROR, logging.CRITICAL] loggers = ['foo', 'foo.bar', 'foo.bar.baz', 'spam', 'spam.ham', 'spam.ham.eggs'] for i in range(100): lvl = random.choice(levels) logger = logging.getLogger(random.choice(loggers)) logger.log(lvl, 'Message no. %d', i) if __name__ == '__main__': q = Queue() d = { 'version': 1, 'formatters': { 'detailed': { 'class': 'logging.Formatter', 'format': '%(asctime)s %(name)-15s %(levelname)-8s %(processName)-10s %(message)s' } }, 'handlers': { 'console': { 'class': 'logging.StreamHandler', 'level': 'INFO', }, 'file': { 'class': 'logging.FileHandler', 'filename': 'mplog.log', 'mode': 'w', 'formatter': 'detailed', }, 'foofile': { 'class': 'logging.FileHandler', 'filename': 'mplog-foo.log', 'mode': 'w', 'formatter': 'detailed', }, 'errors': { 'class': 'logging.FileHandler', 'filename': 'mplog-errors.log', 'mode': 'w', 'level': 'ERROR', 'formatter': 'detailed', }, }, 'loggers': { 'foo': { 'handlers' : ['foofile'] } }, 'root': { 'level': 'DEBUG', 'handlers': ['console', 'file', 'errors'] }, } workers = [] for i in range(5): wp = Process(target=worker_process, name='worker %d' % (i + 1), args=(q,)) workers.append(wp) wp.start() logging.config.dictConfig(d) lp = threading.Thread(target=logger_thread, args=(q,)) lp.start() # At this point, the main process could do some useful work of its own # Once it's done that, it can wait for the workers to terminate... for wp in workers: wp.join() # And now tell the logging thread to finish up, too q.put(None) lp.join() This variant shows how you can e.g. apply configuration for particular loggers - e.g. the ``foo`` logger has a special handler which stores all events in the ``foo`` subsystem in a file ``mplog-foo.log``. This will be used by the logging machinery in the main process (even though the logging events are generated in the worker processes) to direct the messages to the appropriate destinations. Using file rotation ------------------- .. sectionauthor:: Doug Hellmann, Vinay Sajip (changes) .. (see ) Sometimes you want to let a log file grow to a certain size, then open a new file and log to that. You may want to keep a certain number of these files, and when that many files have been created, rotate the files so that the number of files and the size of the files both remain bounded. For this usage pattern, the logging package provides a :class:`~handlers.RotatingFileHandler`:: import glob import logging import logging.handlers LOG_FILENAME = 'logging_rotatingfile_example.out' # Set up a specific logger with our desired output level my_logger = logging.getLogger('MyLogger') my_logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # Add the log message handler to the logger handler = logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler( LOG_FILENAME, maxBytes=20, backupCount=5) my_logger.addHandler(handler) # Log some messages for i in range(20): my_logger.debug('i = %d' % i) # See what files are created logfiles = glob.glob('%s*' % LOG_FILENAME) for filename in logfiles: print(filename) The result should be 6 separate files, each with part of the log history for the application:: logging_rotatingfile_example.out logging_rotatingfile_example.out.1 logging_rotatingfile_example.out.2 logging_rotatingfile_example.out.3 logging_rotatingfile_example.out.4 logging_rotatingfile_example.out.5 The most current file is always :file:`logging_rotatingfile_example.out`, and each time it reaches the size limit it is renamed with the suffix ``.1``. Each of the existing backup files is renamed to increment the suffix (``.1`` becomes ``.2``, etc.) and the ``.6`` file is erased. Obviously this example sets the log length much too small as an extreme example. You would want to set *maxBytes* to an appropriate value. .. _format-styles: Use of alternative formatting styles ------------------------------------ When logging was added to the Python standard library, the only way of formatting messages with variable content was to use the %-formatting method. Since then, Python has gained two new formatting approaches: :class:`string.Template` (added in Python 2.4) and :meth:`str.format` (added in Python 2.6). Logging (as of 3.2) provides improved support for these two additional formatting styles. The :class:`Formatter` class been enhanced to take an additional, optional keyword parameter named ``style``. This defaults to ``'%'``, but other possible values are ``'{'`` and ``'$'``, which correspond to the other two formatting styles. Backwards compatibility is maintained by default (as you would expect), but by explicitly specifying a style parameter, you get the ability to specify format strings which work with :meth:`str.format` or :class:`string.Template`. Here's an example console session to show the possibilities: .. code-block:: pycon >>> import logging >>> root = logging.getLogger() >>> root.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) >>> handler = logging.StreamHandler() >>> bf = logging.Formatter('{asctime} {name} {levelname:8s} {message}', ... style='{') >>> handler.setFormatter(bf) >>> root.addHandler(handler) >>> logger = logging.getLogger('foo.bar') >>> logger.debug('This is a DEBUG message') 2010-10-28 15:11:55,341 foo.bar DEBUG This is a DEBUG message >>> logger.critical('This is a CRITICAL message') 2010-10-28 15:12:11,526 foo.bar CRITICAL This is a CRITICAL message >>> df = logging.Formatter('$asctime $name ${levelname} $message', ... style='$') >>> handler.setFormatter(df) >>> logger.debug('This is a DEBUG message') 2010-10-28 15:13:06,924 foo.bar DEBUG This is a DEBUG message >>> logger.critical('This is a CRITICAL message') 2010-10-28 15:13:11,494 foo.bar CRITICAL This is a CRITICAL message >>> Note that the formatting of logging messages for final output to logs is completely independent of how an individual logging message is constructed. That can still use %-formatting, as shown here:: >>> logger.error('This is an%s %s %s', 'other,', 'ERROR,', 'message') 2010-10-28 15:19:29,833 foo.bar ERROR This is another, ERROR, message >>> Logging calls (``logger.debug()``, ``logger.info()`` etc.) only take positional parameters for the actual logging message itself, with keyword parameters used only for determining options for how to handle the actual logging call (e.g. the ``exc_info`` keyword parameter to indicate that traceback information should be logged, or the ``extra`` keyword parameter to indicate additional contextual information to be added to the log). So you cannot directly make logging calls using :meth:`str.format` or :class:`string.Template` syntax, because internally the logging package uses %-formatting to merge the format string and the variable arguments. There would no changing this while preserving backward compatibility, since all logging calls which are out there in existing code will be using %-format strings. There is, however, a way that you can use {}- and $- formatting to construct your individual log messages. Recall that for a message you can use an arbitrary object as a message format string, and that the logging package will call ``str()`` on that object to get the actual format string. Consider the following two classes:: class BraceMessage: def __init__(self, fmt, *args, **kwargs): self.fmt = fmt self.args = args self.kwargs = kwargs def __str__(self): return self.fmt.format(*self.args, **self.kwargs) class DollarMessage: def __init__(self, fmt, **kwargs): self.fmt = fmt self.kwargs = kwargs def __str__(self): from string import Template return Template(self.fmt).substitute(**self.kwargs) Either of these can be used in place of a format string, to allow {}- or $-formatting to be used to build the actual "message" part which appears in the formatted log output in place of "%(message)s" or "{message}" or "$message". It's a little unwieldy to use the class names whenever you want to log something, but it's quite palatable if you use an alias such as __ (double underscore – not to be confused with _, the single underscore used as a synonym/alias for :func:`gettext.gettext` or its brethren). The above classes are not included in Python, though they're easy enough to copy and paste into your own code. They can be used as follows (assuming that they're declared in a module called ``wherever``): .. code-block:: pycon >>> from wherever import BraceMessage as __ >>> print(__('Message with {0} {name}', 2, name='placeholders')) Message with 2 placeholders >>> class Point: pass ... >>> p = Point() >>> p.x = 0.5 >>> p.y = 0.5 >>> print(__('Message with coordinates: ({point.x:.2f}, {point.y:.2f})', ... point=p)) Message with coordinates: (0.50, 0.50) >>> from wherever import DollarMessage as __ >>> print(__('Message with $num $what', num=2, what='placeholders')) Message with 2 placeholders >>> While the above examples use ``print()`` to show how the formatting works, you would of course use ``logger.debug()`` or similar to actually log using this approach. One thing to note is that you pay no significant performance penalty with this approach: the actual formatting happens not when you make the logging call, but when (and if) the logged message is actually about to be output to a log by a handler. So the only slightly unusual thing which might trip you up is that the parentheses go around the format string and the arguments, not just the format string. That's because the __ notation is just syntax sugar for a constructor call to one of the XXXMessage classes. If you prefer, you can use a :class:`LoggerAdapter` to achieve a similar effect to the above, as in the following example:: import logging class Message(object): def __init__(self, fmt, args): self.fmt = fmt self.args = args def __str__(self): return self.fmt.format(*self.args) class StyleAdapter(logging.LoggerAdapter): def __init__(self, logger, extra=None): super(StyleAdapter, self).__init__(logger, extra or {}) def log(self, level, msg, *args, **kwargs): if self.isEnabledFor(level): msg, kwargs = self.process(msg, kwargs) self.logger._log(level, Message(msg, args), (), **kwargs) logger = StyleAdapter(logging.getLogger(__name__)) def main(): logger.debug('Hello, {}', 'world!') if __name__ == '__main__': logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG) main() The above script should log the message ``Hello, world!`` when run with Python 3.2 or later. .. currentmodule:: logging .. _custom-logrecord: Customising ``LogRecord`` ------------------------- Every logging event is represented by a :class:`LogRecord` instance. When an event is logged and not filtered out by a logger's level, a :class:`LogRecord` is created, populated with information about the event and then passed to the handlers for that logger (and its ancestors, up to and including the logger where further propagation up the hierarchy is disabled). Before Python 3.2, there were only two places where this creation was done: * :meth:`Logger.makeRecord`, which is called in the normal process of logging an event. This invoked :class:`LogRecord` directly to create an instance. * :func:`makeLogRecord`, which is called with a dictionary containing attributes to be added to the LogRecord. This is typically invoked when a suitable dictionary has been received over the network (e.g. in pickle form via a :class:`~handlers.SocketHandler`, or in JSON form via an :class:`~handlers.HTTPHandler`). This has usually meant that if you need to do anything special with a :class:`LogRecord`, you've had to do one of the following. * Create your own :class:`Logger` subclass, which overrides :meth:`Logger.makeRecord`, and set it using :func:`~logging.setLoggerClass` before any loggers that you care about are instantiated. * Add a :class:`Filter` to a logger or handler, which does the necessary special manipulation you need when its :meth:`~Filter.filter` method is called. The first approach would be a little unwieldy in the scenario where (say) several different libraries wanted to do different things. Each would attempt to set its own :class:`Logger` subclass, and the one which did this last would win. The second approach works reasonably well for many cases, but does not allow you to e.g. use a specialized subclass of :class:`LogRecord`. Library developers can set a suitable filter on their loggers, but they would have to remember to do this every time they introduced a new logger (which they would do simply by adding new packages or modules and doing :: logger = logging.getLogger(__name__) at module level). It's probably one too many things to think about. Developers could also add the filter to a :class:`~logging.NullHandler` attached to their top-level logger, but this would not be invoked if an application developer attached a handler to a lower-level library logger – so output from that handler would not reflect the intentions of the library developer. In Python 3.2 and later, :class:`~logging.LogRecord` creation is done through a factory, which you can specify. The factory is just a callable you can set with :func:`~logging.setLogRecordFactory`, and interrogate with :func:`~logging.getLogRecordFactory`. The factory is invoked with the same signature as the :class:`~logging.LogRecord` constructor, as :class:`LogRecord` is the default setting for the factory. This approach allows a custom factory to control all aspects of LogRecord creation. For example, you could return a subclass, or just add some additional attributes to the record once created, using a pattern similar to this:: old_factory = logging.getLogRecordFactory() def record_factory(*args, **kwargs): record = old_factory(*args, **kwargs) record.custom_attribute = 0xdecafbad return record logging.setLogRecordFactory(record_factory) This pattern allows different libraries to chain factories together, and as long as they don't overwrite each other's attributes or unintentionally overwrite the attributes provided as standard, there should be no surprises. However, it should be borne in mind that each link in the chain adds run-time overhead to all logging operations, and the technique should only be used when the use of a :class:`Filter` does not provide the desired result. .. _zeromq-handlers: Subclassing QueueHandler - a ZeroMQ example ------------------------------------------- You can use a :class:`QueueHandler` subclass to send messages to other kinds of queues, for example a ZeroMQ 'publish' socket. In the example below,the socket is created separately and passed to the handler (as its 'queue'):: import zmq # using pyzmq, the Python binding for ZeroMQ import json # for serializing records portably ctx = zmq.Context() sock = zmq.Socket(ctx, zmq.PUB) # or zmq.PUSH, or other suitable value sock.bind('tcp://*:5556') # or wherever class ZeroMQSocketHandler(QueueHandler): def enqueue(self, record): data = json.dumps(record.__dict__) self.queue.send(data) handler = ZeroMQSocketHandler(sock) Of course there are other ways of organizing this, for example passing in the data needed by the handler to create the socket:: class ZeroMQSocketHandler(QueueHandler): def __init__(self, uri, socktype=zmq.PUB, ctx=None): self.ctx = ctx or zmq.Context() socket = zmq.Socket(self.ctx, socktype) socket.bind(uri) QueueHandler.__init__(self, socket) def enqueue(self, record): data = json.dumps(record.__dict__) self.queue.send(data) def close(self): self.queue.close() Subclassing QueueListener - a ZeroMQ example -------------------------------------------- You can also subclass :class:`QueueListener` to get messages from other kinds of queues, for example a ZeroMQ 'subscribe' socket. Here's an example:: class ZeroMQSocketListener(QueueListener): def __init__(self, uri, *handlers, **kwargs): self.ctx = kwargs.get('ctx') or zmq.Context() socket = zmq.Socket(self.ctx, zmq.SUB) socket.setsockopt(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, '') # subscribe to everything socket.connect(uri) def dequeue(self): msg = self.queue.recv() return logging.makeLogRecord(json.loads(msg)) .. seealso:: Module :mod:`logging` API reference for the logging module. Module :mod:`logging.config` Configuration API for the logging module. Module :mod:`logging.handlers` Useful handlers included with the logging module. :ref:`A basic logging tutorial ` :ref:`A more advanced logging tutorial ` An example dictionary-based configuration ----------------------------------------- Below is an example of a logging configuration dictionary - it's taken from the `documentation on the Django project `_. This dictionary is passed to :func:`~config.dictConfig` to put the configuration into effect:: LOGGING = { 'version': 1, 'disable_existing_loggers': True, 'formatters': { 'verbose': { 'format': '%(levelname)s %(asctime)s %(module)s %(process)d %(thread)d %(message)s' }, 'simple': { 'format': '%(levelname)s %(message)s' }, }, 'filters': { 'special': { '()': 'project.logging.SpecialFilter', 'foo': 'bar', } }, 'handlers': { 'null': { 'level':'DEBUG', 'class':'django.utils.log.NullHandler', }, 'console':{ 'level':'DEBUG', 'class':'logging.StreamHandler', 'formatter': 'simple' }, 'mail_admins': { 'level': 'ERROR', 'class': 'django.utils.log.AdminEmailHandler', 'filters': ['special'] } }, 'loggers': { 'django': { 'handlers':['null'], 'propagate': True, 'level':'INFO', }, 'django.request': { 'handlers': ['mail_admins'], 'level': 'ERROR', 'propagate': False, }, 'myproject.custom': { 'handlers': ['console', 'mail_admins'], 'level': 'INFO', 'filters': ['special'] } } } For more information about this configuration, you can see the `relevant section `_ of the Django documentation. .. _cookbook-rotator-namer: Using a rotator and namer to customise log rotation processing -------------------------------------------------------------- An example of how you can define a namer and rotator is given in the following snippet, which shows zlib-based compression of the log file:: def namer(name): return name + ".gz" def rotator(source, dest): with open(source, "rb") as sf: data = sf.read() compressed = zlib.compress(data, 9) with open(dest, "wb") as df: df.write(compressed) os.remove(source) rh = logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler(...) rh.rotator = rotator rh.namer = namer These are not "true" .gz files, as they are bare compressed data, with no "container" such as you’d find in an actual gzip file. This snippet is just for illustration purposes. A more elaborate multiprocessing example ---------------------------------------- The following working example shows how logging can be used with multiprocessing using configuration files. The configurations are fairly simple, but serve to illustrate how more complex ones could be implemented in a real multiprocessing scenario. In the example, the main process spawns a listener process and some worker processes. Each of the main process, the listener and the workers have three separate configurations (the workers all share the same configuration). We can see logging in the main process, how the workers log to a QueueHandler and how the listener implements a QueueListener and a more complex logging configuration, and arranges to dispatch events received via the queue to the handlers specified in the configuration. Note that these configurations are purely illustrative, but you should be able to adapt this example to your own scenario. Here's the script - the docstrings and the comments hopefully explain how it works:: import logging import logging.config import logging.handlers from multiprocessing import Process, Queue, Event, current_process import os import random import time class MyHandler: """ A simple handler for logging events. It runs in the listener process and dispatches events to loggers based on the name in the received record, which then get dispatched, by the logging system, to the handlers configured for those loggers. """ def handle(self, record): logger = logging.getLogger(record.name) # The process name is transformed just to show that it's the listener # doing the logging to files and console record.processName = '%s (for %s)' % (current_process().name, record.processName) logger.handle(record) def listener_process(q, stop_event, config): """ This could be done in the main process, but is just done in a separate process for illustrative purposes. This initialises logging according to the specified configuration, starts the listener and waits for the main process to signal completion via the event. The listener is then stopped, and the process exits. """ logging.config.dictConfig(config) listener = logging.handlers.QueueListener(q, MyHandler()) listener.start() if os.name == 'posix': # On POSIX, the setup logger will have been configured in the # parent process, but should have been disabled following the # dictConfig call. # On Windows, since fork isn't used, the setup logger won't # exist in the child, so it would be created and the message # would appear - hence the "if posix" clause. logger = logging.getLogger('setup') logger.critical('Should not appear, because of disabled logger ...') stop_event.wait() listener.stop() def worker_process(config): """ A number of these are spawned for the purpose of illustration. In practice, they could be a heterogenous bunch of processes rather than ones which are identical to each other. This initialises logging according to the specified configuration, and logs a hundred messages with random levels to randomly selected loggers. A small sleep is added to allow other processes a chance to run. This is not strictly needed, but it mixes the output from the different processes a bit more than if it's left out. """ logging.config.dictConfig(config) levels = [logging.DEBUG, logging.INFO, logging.WARNING, logging.ERROR, logging.CRITICAL] loggers = ['foo', 'foo.bar', 'foo.bar.baz', 'spam', 'spam.ham', 'spam.ham.eggs'] if os.name == 'posix': # On POSIX, the setup logger will have been configured in the # parent process, but should have been disabled following the # dictConfig call. # On Windows, since fork isn't used, the setup logger won't # exist in the child, so it would be created and the message # would appear - hence the "if posix" clause. logger = logging.getLogger('setup') logger.critical('Should not appear, because of disabled logger ...') for i in range(100): lvl = random.choice(levels) logger = logging.getLogger(random.choice(loggers)) logger.log(lvl, 'Message no. %d', i) time.sleep(0.01) def main(): q = Queue() # The main process gets a simple configuration which prints to the console. config_initial = { 'version': 1, 'formatters': { 'detailed': { 'class': 'logging.Formatter', 'format': '%(asctime)s %(name)-15s %(levelname)-8s %(processName)-10s %(message)s' } }, 'handlers': { 'console': { 'class': 'logging.StreamHandler', 'level': 'INFO', }, }, 'root': { 'level': 'DEBUG', 'handlers': ['console'] }, } # The worker process configuration is just a QueueHandler attached to the # root logger, which allows all messages to be sent to the queue. # We disable existing loggers to disable the "setup" logger used in the # parent process. This is needed on POSIX because the logger will # be there in the child following a fork(). config_worker = { 'version': 1, 'disable_existing_loggers': True, 'handlers': { 'queue': { 'class': 'logging.handlers.QueueHandler', 'queue': q, }, }, 'root': { 'level': 'DEBUG', 'handlers': ['queue'] }, } # The listener process configuration shows that the full flexibility of # logging configuration is available to dispatch events to handlers however # you want. # We disable existing loggers to disable the "setup" logger used in the # parent process. This is needed on POSIX because the logger will # be there in the child following a fork(). config_listener = { 'version': 1, 'disable_existing_loggers': True, 'formatters': { 'detailed': { 'class': 'logging.Formatter', 'format': '%(asctime)s %(name)-15s %(levelname)-8s %(processName)-10s %(message)s' }, 'simple': { 'class': 'logging.Formatter', 'format': '%(name)-15s %(levelname)-8s %(processName)-10s %(message)s' } }, 'handlers': { 'console': { 'class': 'logging.StreamHandler', 'level': 'INFO', 'formatter': 'simple', }, 'file': { 'class': 'logging.FileHandler', 'filename': 'mplog.log', 'mode': 'w', 'formatter': 'detailed', }, 'foofile': { 'class': 'logging.FileHandler', 'filename': 'mplog-foo.log', 'mode': 'w', 'formatter': 'detailed', }, 'errors': { 'class': 'logging.FileHandler', 'filename': 'mplog-errors.log', 'mode': 'w', 'level': 'ERROR', 'formatter': 'detailed', }, }, 'loggers': { 'foo': { 'handlers' : ['foofile'] } }, 'root': { 'level': 'DEBUG', 'handlers': ['console', 'file', 'errors'] }, } # Log some initial events, just to show that logging in the parent works # normally. logging.config.dictConfig(config_initial) logger = logging.getLogger('setup') logger.info('About to create workers ...') workers = [] for i in range(5): wp = Process(target=worker_process, name='worker %d' % (i + 1), args=(config_worker,)) workers.append(wp) wp.start() logger.info('Started worker: %s', wp.name) logger.info('About to create listener ...') stop_event = Event() lp = Process(target=listener_process, name='listener', args=(q, stop_event, config_listener)) lp.start() logger.info('Started listener') # We now hang around for the workers to finish their work. for wp in workers: wp.join() # Workers all done, listening can now stop. # Logging in the parent still works normally. logger.info('Telling listener to stop ...') stop_event.set() lp.join() logger.info('All done.') if __name__ == '__main__': main() Inserting a BOM into messages sent to a SysLogHandler ----------------------------------------------------- `RFC 5424 `_ requires that a Unicode message be sent to a syslog daemon as a set of bytes which have the following structure: an optional pure-ASCII component, followed by a UTF-8 Byte Order Mark (BOM), followed by Unicode encoded using UTF-8. (See the `relevant section of the specification `_.) In Python 3.1, code was added to :class:`~logging.handlers.SysLogHandler` to insert a BOM into the message, but unfortunately, it was implemented incorrectly, with the BOM appearing at the beginning of the message and hence not allowing any pure-ASCII component to appear before it. As this behaviour is broken, the incorrect BOM insertion code is being removed from Python 3.2.4 and later. However, it is not being replaced, and if you want to produce RFC 5424-compliant messages which include a BOM, an optional pure-ASCII sequence before it and arbitrary Unicode after it, encoded using UTF-8, then you need to do the following: #. Attach a :class:`~logging.Formatter` instance to your :class:`~logging.handlers.SysLogHandler` instance, with a format string such as:: 'ASCII section\ufeffUnicode section' The Unicode code point U+FEFF, when encoded using UTF-8, will be encoded as a UTF-8 BOM -- the byte-string ``b'\xef\xbb\xbf'``. #. Replace the ASCII section with whatever placeholders you like, but make sure that the data that appears in there after substitution is always ASCII (that way, it will remain unchanged after UTF-8 encoding). #. Replace the Unicode section with whatever placeholders you like; if the data which appears there after substitution contains characters outside the ASCII range, that's fine -- it will be encoded using UTF-8. The formatted message *will* be encoded using UTF-8 encoding by ``SysLogHandler``. If you follow the above rules, you should be able to produce RFC 5424-compliant messages. If you don't, logging may not complain, but your messages will not be RFC 5424-compliant, and your syslog daemon may complain. Implementing structured logging ------------------------------- Although most logging messages are intended for reading by humans, and thus not readily machine-parseable, there might be cirumstances where you want to output messages in a structured format which *is* capable of being parsed by a program (without needing complex regular expressions to parse the log message). This is straightforward to achieve using the logging package. There are a number of ways in which this could be achieved, but the following is a simple approach which uses JSON to serialise the event in a machine-parseable manner:: import json import logging class StructuredMessage(object): def __init__(self, message, **kwargs): self.message = message self.kwargs = kwargs def __str__(self): return '%s >>> %s' % (self.message, json.dumps(self.kwargs)) _ = StructuredMessage # optional, to improve readability logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO, format='%(message)s') logging.info(_('message 1', foo='bar', bar='baz', num=123, fnum=123.456)) If the above script is run, it prints:: message 1 >>> {"fnum": 123.456, "num": 123, "bar": "baz", "foo": "bar"} Note that the order of items might be different according to the version of Python used. If you need more specialised processing, you can use a custom JSON encoder, as in the following complete example:: from __future__ import unicode_literals import json import logging # This next bit is to ensure the script runs unchanged on 2.x and 3.x try: unicode except NameError: unicode = str class Encoder(json.JSONEncoder): def default(self, o): if isinstance(o, set): return tuple(o) elif isinstance(o, unicode): return o.encode('unicode_escape').decode('ascii') return super(Encoder, self).default(o) class StructuredMessage(object): def __init__(self, message, **kwargs): self.message = message self.kwargs = kwargs def __str__(self): s = Encoder().encode(self.kwargs) return '%s >>> %s' % (self.message, s) _ = StructuredMessage # optional, to improve readability def main(): logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO, format='%(message)s') logging.info(_('message 1', set_value=set([1, 2, 3]), snowman='\u2603')) if __name__ == '__main__': main() When the above script is run, it prints:: message 1 >>> {"snowman": "\u2603", "set_value": [1, 2, 3]} Note that the order of items might be different according to the version of Python used.