[python] Python/Django: log to console under runserver, log to file under Apache

How can I send trace messages to the console (like print) when I'm running my Django app under manage.py runserver, but have those messages sent to a log file when I'm running the app under Apache?

I reviewed Django logging and although I was impressed with its flexibility and configurability for advanced uses, I'm still stumped with how to handle my simple use-case.

You can do this pretty easily with tagalog (https://github.com/dorkitude/tagalog)

For instance, while the standard python module writes to a file object opened in append mode, the App Engine module (https://github.com/dorkitude/tagalog/blob/master/tagalog_appengine.py) overrides this behavior and instead uses logging.INFO.

To get this behavior in an App Engine project, one could simply do:

import tagalog.tagalog_appengine as tagalog
tagalog.log('whatever message', ['whatever','tags'])

You could extend the module yourself and overwrite the log function without much difficulty.

I use this:

logging.conf:

[loggers]
keys=root,applog
[handlers]
keys=rotateFileHandler,rotateConsoleHandler

[formatters]
keys=applog_format,console_format

[formatter_applog_format]
format=%(asctime)s-[%(levelname)-8s]:%(message)s

[formatter_console_format]
format=%(asctime)s-%(filename)s%(lineno)d[%(levelname)s]:%(message)s

[logger_root]
level=DEBUG
handlers=rotateFileHandler,rotateConsoleHandler

[logger_applog]
level=DEBUG
handlers=rotateFileHandler
qualname=simple_example

[handler_rotateFileHandler]
class=handlers.RotatingFileHandler
level=DEBUG
formatter=applog_format
args=('applog.log', 'a', 10000, 9)

[handler_rotateConsoleHandler]
class=StreamHandler
level=DEBUG
formatter=console_format
args=(sys.stdout,)

testapp.py:

import logging
import logging.config

def main():
    logging.config.fileConfig('logging.conf')
    logger = logging.getLogger('applog')

    logger.debug('debug message')
    logger.info('info message')
    logger.warn('warn message')
    logger.error('error message')
    logger.critical('critical message')
    #logging.shutdown()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

This works quite well in my local.py, saves me messing up the regular logging:

from .settings import *

LOGGING['handlers']['console'] = {
    'level': 'DEBUG',
    'class': 'logging.StreamHandler',
    'formatter': 'verbose'
}
LOGGING['loggers']['foo.bar'] = {
    'handlers': ['console'],
    'propagate': False,
    'level': 'DEBUG',
}

You can configure logging in your settings.py file.

One example:

if DEBUG:
    # will output to your console
    logging.basicConfig(
        level = logging.DEBUG,
        format = '%(asctime)s %(levelname)s %(message)s',
    )
else:
    # will output to logging file
    logging.basicConfig(
        level = logging.DEBUG,
        format = '%(asctime)s %(levelname)s %(message)s',
        filename = '/my_log_file.log',
        filemode = 'a'
    )

However that's dependent upon setting DEBUG, and maybe you don't want to have to worry about how it's set up. See this answer on How can I tell whether my Django application is running on development server or not? for a better way of writing that conditional. Edit: the example above is from a Django 1.1 project, logging configuration in Django has changed somewhat since that version.

Here's a Django logging-based solution. It uses the DEBUG setting rather than actually checking whether or not you're running the development server, but if you find a better way to check for that it should be easy to adapt.

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'formatters': {
        'verbose': {
            'format': '%(levelname)s %(asctime)s %(module)s %(process)d %(thread)d %(message)s'
        },
        'simple': {
            'format': '%(levelname)s %(message)s'
        },
    },
    'handlers': {
        'console': {
            'level': 'DEBUG',
            'class': 'logging.StreamHandler',
            'formatter': 'simple'
        },
        'file': {
            'level': 'DEBUG',
            'class': 'logging.FileHandler',
            'filename': '/path/to/your/file.log',
            'formatter': 'simple'
        },
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django': {
            'handlers': ['file'],
            'level': 'DEBUG',
            'propagate': True,
        },
    }
}

if DEBUG:
    # make all loggers use the console.
    for logger in LOGGING['loggers']:
        LOGGING['loggers'][logger]['handlers'] = ['console']

see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/logging/ for details.