Configure and use logging¶

When a command is run, more detailed logging output is sent to a file than to the screen (by default). This output can be recalled for the command just executed by running last.

For example, the output of run when the sources are uptodate is:

> run
[info] Running A
Hi!
[success] Total time: 0 s, completed Feb 25, 2012 1:00:00 PM

The details of this execution can be recalled by running last:

> last
[debug] Running task... Cancelable: false, max worker threads: 4, check cycles: false
[debug]
[debug] Initial source changes:
[debug]     removed:Set()
[debug]     added: Set()
[debug]     modified: Set()
[debug] Removed products: Set()
[debug] Modified external sources: Set()
[debug] Modified binary dependencies: Set()
[debug] Initial directly invalidated sources: Set()
[debug]
[debug] Sources indirectly invalidated by:
[debug]     product: Set()
[debug]     binary dep: Set()
[debug]     external source: Set()
[debug] Initially invalidated: Set()
[debug] Copy resource mappings:
[debug]
[info] Running A
[debug] Starting sandboxed run...
[debug] Waiting for threads to exit or System.exit to be called.
[debug]   Classpath:
[debug]     /tmp/e/target/scala-2.9.2/classes
[debug]     /tmp/e/.sbt/0.12.0/boot/scala-2.9.2/lib/scala-library.jar
[debug] Waiting for thread run-main to exit
[debug]     Thread run-main exited.
[debug] Interrupting remaining threads (should be all daemons).
[debug] Sandboxed run complete..
[debug] Exited with code 0
[success] Total time: 0 s, completed Jan 1, 2012 1:00:00 PM

Configuration of the logging level for the console and for the backing file are described in following sections.

When a task is run, more detailed logging output is sent to a file than to the screen (by default). This output can be recalled for a specific task by running last <task>. For example, the first time compile is run, output might look like:

> compile
[info] Updating {file:/.../demo/}example...
[info] Resolving org.scala-lang#scala-library;2.9.2 ...
[info] Done updating.
[info] Compiling 1 Scala source to .../demo/target/scala-2.9.2/classes...
[success] Total time: 0 s, completed Jun 1, 2012 1:11:11 PM

The output indicates that both dependency resolution and compilation were performed. The detailed output of each of these may be recalled individually. For example,

> last compile
[debug]
[debug] Initial source changes:
[debug]     removed:Set()
[debug]     added: Set(/home/mark/tmp/a/b/A.scala)
[debug]     modified: Set()
...

and:

> last update
[info] Updating {file:/.../demo/}example...
[debug] post 1.3 ivy file: using exact as default matcher
[debug] :: resolving dependencies :: example#example_2.9.2;0.1-SNAPSHOT
[debug]     confs: [compile, runtime, test, provided, optional, compile-internal, runtime-internal, test-internal, plugin, sources, docs, pom]
[debug]     validate = true
[debug]     refresh = false
[debug] resolving dependencies for configuration 'compile'
...

The Scala compiler does not print the full details of warnings by default. Compiling code that uses the deprecated error method from Predef might generate the following output:

> compile
[info] Compiling 1 Scala source to <...>/classes...
[warn] there were 1 deprecation warnings; re-run with -deprecation for details
[warn] one warning found

The details aren't provided, so it is necessary to add -deprecation to the options passed to the compiler (scalacOptions) and recompile. An alternative when using Scala 2.10 and later is to run print-warnings. This task will display all warnings from the previous compilation. For example,

> print-warnings
[warn] A.scala:2: method error in object Predef is deprecated: Use sys.error(message) instead
[warn]      def x = error("Failed.")
[warn]              ^

The amount of logging is controlled by the logLevel setting, which takes values from the Level enumeration. Valid values are Error, Warn, Info, and Debug in order of increasing verbosity. To change the global logging level, set logLevel in Global. For example, to set it temporarily from the sbt prompt,

   > set logLevel in Global := Level.Warn


- id: tasklevel
  :title: Change the logging level for a specific task, configuration, or project
  setting: logLevel in compile := Level.Debug

The amount of logging is controlled by the logLevel setting, which takes values from the Level enumeration. Valid values are Error, Warn, Info, and Debug in order of increasing verbosity. The logging level may be configured globally, as described in the previous section, or it may be applied to a specific project, configuration, or task. For example, to change the logging level for compilation to only show warnings and errors:

> set logLevel in compile := Level.Warn

To enable debug logging for all tasks in the current project,

> set logLevel := Level.Warn

A common scenario is that after running a task, you notice that you need more information than was shown by default. A logLevel based solution typically requires changing the logging level and running a task again. However, there are two cases where this is unnecessary. First, warnings from a previous compilation may be displayed using print-warnings for the main sources or test:print-warnings for test sources. Second, output from the previous execution is available either for a single task or for in its entirety. See the section on print-warnings and the sections on previous output.

By default, sbt hides the stack trace of most exceptions thrown during execution. It prints a message that indicates how to display the exception. However, you may want to show more of stack traces by default.

The setting to configure is traceLevel, which is a setting with an Int value. When traceLevel is set to a negative value, no stack traces are shown. When it is zero, the stack trace is displayed up to the first sbt stack frame. When positive, the stack trace is shown up to that many stack frames.

For example, the following configures sbt to show stack traces up to the first sbt frame:

> set every traceLevel := 0

The every part means to override the setting in all scopes. To change the trace printing behavior for a single project, configuration, or task, scope traceLevel appropriately:

> set traceLevel in Test := 5
> set traceLevel in update := 0
> set traceLevel in ThisProject := -1

By default, sbt buffers the logging output of a test until the whole class finishes. This is so that output does not get mixed up when executing in parallel. To disable buffering, set the logBuffered setting to false:

logBuffered := false

The setting extraLoggers can be used to add custom loggers. A custom logger should implement [AbstractLogger]. extraLoggers is a function ScopedKey[_] => Seq[AbstractLogger]. This means that it can provide different logging based on the task that requests the logger.

extraLoggers ~= { currentFunction =>
    (key: ScopedKey[_]) => {
            myCustomLogger(key) +: currentFunction(key)
    }
}

Here, we take the current function for the setting currentFunction and provide a new function. The new function prepends our custom logger to the ones provided by the old function.

The special task streams provides per-task logging and I/O via a Streams instance. To log, a task maps the streams task and uses its log member:

myTask <<= (..., streams) map { (..., s) =>
    s.log.warn("A warning.")
}