File logger

File logger is a lightweight module that allows developers to configure a log file from within Drupal and dump variables to it from within a running Drupal app. Its primary function is to support debugging, and it avoids the awkwardness of dumping variables either to the console or to the watchdog table. Instead, using the unix tail command, a developer can easily view debugging output. This is particularly useful when dumping large data structures such as nodes, views, menus, etc.

Installation

• Copy the module's directory to your modules directory and activate the module.
• In Site configuration > File logging (admin/settings/flog on D6 or admin/config/development/flog on D7), specify the path
  to the log file(s) and the default log file name.
• (Optionally) Configure the date string to be included with each logged variable.
• Ensure that the user running the webserver has write permission on the file you specify.
  It may be simpler to create that file in advance using the unix command 'touch' as in
  'touch /var/log/drupal.log'. Then, set the permissions on the log file so it is writeable
  by the web server user, e.g. 'chmod 777 /var/log/drupal.log'.
• Enable file logging. When disabled, no output is written. You'll probably want to disable
  file logging in a production environment.

Using File logger

To dump a variable call the function flog_it() with any variable. Here is an example:

function my_module_form_alter(&$form, $form_state, $form_id) {
  // What does the form data structure look like?
  flog_it($form);

  // ...
}

You can also add a label to a flog_it() call, which makes the output easier to find, especially when
dumping lots of stuff. The label goes into the second argument:

flog_it($form, 'FORM ID: '.$form_id);

You can optionally provide a filename to flog_it(), which overrides the default log file (but uses
the configured directory):

...
flog_it($form, 'FORM ID: ' . $form_id, 'some_other_file_name.txt');

Finally, there is one other convenience function, when dumps the php stack at the time of
execution of the statement. This function takes one optional argument, which is a label:

flog_stack('stack before first call to foo()');

On unix systems, the tail command can be used to see output from flog_it() and flog_stack() calls, e.g.:

tail -f /var/log/drupal.log

Sponsor

This module is sponsored by the Human Capital Institute (http://www.hci.org).