📒OSLogTrace

API for Apple's System Log, Signposts and Activty tracing built for Swift

The framework uses features introduced in Swift 5 to make interacting with Apple system log natural and easy from Swift code. Swift oriented convenience APIs for logging signposts and activity tracing are also included to make their use natural as well.

Logging

OSLogManager

The log manager, OSLogManager, is a factory to vend configured OSLog instances.

Use by calling the static for method to create an instance of OSLogManager:

let log = OSLogManager.for(category: "My Application")

Further configuration can be achieved by providing a configuration block to alter the manager's properties:

let logManager = OSLogManager.for(category: "My Application") { logManager in
  logManager.baseCategory = "General"
}

OSLogManager & OSLog provide prefixes that can be used to help identify log messages in complex output. The default values use emoji to uniquely identify each log level. For customization, application-wide configuration of logging prefixes can be done using the global variable logConfig:

OSLogTrace.logConfig.prefix.error = "☢️"

OSLog

The logging interface uses the standard OSLog class provided by the os.log package. It is extended with typed methods for each log level and take a LogMessage to provide parameterized logging messages using Swift 5's string interpolation magic.

extension OSLog {
  public func log(type: OSLogType, _ message: @autoclosure () -> LogMessage)
  public func log(_ message: @autoclosure () -> LogMessage) 
  public func info(_ message: @autoclosure () -> LogMessage)
  public func debug(_ message: @autoclosure () -> LogMessage)
  public func error(_ message: @autoclosure () -> LogMessage)
  public func fault(_ message: @autoclosure () -> LogMessage)
}

LogMessage

Generating parameterized log messages is simple using LogMessage and thanks to Swift 5's string interpolation support (via ExpressibleByStringInterpolation) they can be created using standard Swift syntax...

let audience = "World"
log.info("Hello \(audience)")

This simple log message properly passes the audience parameter on to the OSLog as a dynamic parameter. This defers message creation until needed and allows us to control how the system log displays and reports these parameters.

Display

Apple's system log can interpret certain types of data and OSLogTrace's logging extensions expose that capability naturally.

For example, if you are logging download progress you might use:

let completedBytes = 2.4 * 1024 * 1024
log.debug("Downloaded \(completedBytes, unit: .bytes)")

The log will display the value using the best available unit. In this specfic case it would be reported as:

Downloaded 2.4 MiB 

Privacy

Apple's System Log supports privacy as well. Marking parameters as private will ensure this information is not stored long term and redacted in the right context.

For example, logging a sign-in that contains a private email address is simple:

let accountEmail = "[email protected]"
log.info("Sign-in from \(accountEmail, view: .private)")

The system log will now take care of handling the sensitive email data.

For more information see "Formmatting Log Messages" in Apple's Logging documentation

Signposts

Signpost's are Apple's logging enhancement for debugging and profiling working side-by-side with OSLog. Signpost IDs can be created and marked using OSLogTrace's convenience API(s).

Create a signpost ID unique to a specific log instance, and mark it:

let log: OSLog = ...
let spid = log.signpostID()  // Create ID
log.event("Stage 1", spid)   // Mark "event"
log.event("Stage 1", spid, "A \(parameterized) message") // Mark "event" with a log message

Utilize the Signpost convenience API to manage a signpost ID and log together:

let log: OSLog = ...
let sp = log.signpost()   // Create a Signpost with a unique signpost ID
sp.event("Stage 1")       // Mark "event"
sp.event("Stage 1", "A \(parameterized) message") // Mark "event" with a log message

Activity Tracing

OSLogTrace also provides a convenience API for Apple's activity tracing.

Create an Activity and immediately execute code in its context:

Activity("Download Email") {
  // download the emails
}

Create an Activity and execute multiple code blocks in its context:

let emailDownload = Activity("Download Email")

emailDownload.run {
  // download some emails
}

...

emailDownload.run {
  // download some emails
}

Create an Activity and manually manage the entering and leaving of its scope/context:

let emailDownload = Activity("Download Email")

let scope = emailDownload.enter()
defer { scope.leave() }

// download some emails