Edit: Since it appears that there\'s either no solution, or I\'m doing something so non-standard that nobody knows - I\'ll revise my question to also ask: What is the best w
(Ah, just re-read your question and see that this doesn't quite apply.)
Here is a sample program that makes uses the python logging module. This logging module has been in all versions since 2.3. In this sample the logging is configurable by command line options.
In quite mode it will only log to a file, in normal mode it will log to both a file and the console.
import os
import sys
import logging
from optparse import OptionParser
def initialize_logging(options):
""" Log information based upon users options"""
logger = logging.getLogger('project')
formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s %(levelname)s\t%(message)s')
level = logging.__dict__.get(options.loglevel.upper(),logging.DEBUG)
logger.setLevel(level)
# Output logging information to screen
if not options.quiet:
hdlr = logging.StreamHandler(sys.stderr)
hdlr.setFormatter(formatter)
logger.addHandler(hdlr)
# Output logging information to file
logfile = os.path.join(options.logdir, "project.log")
if options.clean and os.path.isfile(logfile):
os.remove(logfile)
hdlr2 = logging.FileHandler(logfile)
hdlr2.setFormatter(formatter)
logger.addHandler(hdlr2)
return logger
def main(argv=None):
if argv is None:
argv = sys.argv[1:]
# Setup command line options
parser = OptionParser("usage: %prog [options]")
parser.add_option("-l", "--logdir", dest="logdir", default=".", help="log DIRECTORY (default ./)")
parser.add_option("-v", "--loglevel", dest="loglevel", default="debug", help="logging level (debug, info, error)")
parser.add_option("-q", "--quiet", action="store_true", dest="quiet", help="do not log to console")
parser.add_option("-c", "--clean", dest="clean", action="store_true", default=False, help="remove old log file")
# Process command line options
(options, args) = parser.parse_args(argv)
# Setup logger format and output locations
logger = initialize_logging(options)
# Examples
logger.error("This is an error message.")
logger.info("This is an info message.")
logger.debug("This is a debug message.")
if __name__ == "__main__":
sys.exit(main())