Bang System Logging

This will produce the log message:

A number and a string: 17, foo

The value will be formatted correctly depending on its type: integers, strings, arrays, objects, booleans etc. You don’t need to check if values are null or empty, they’ll still be output safely.

If you put the code %s into your log message, then one of the arguments will be dropped into the message:

<?php do_action('log', 'I have %s numbers', count($numbers), $numbers); ?>

This will produce the log message:

I have 4 numbers: [9, 16, 307, 1]

Selecting fields

Logging a complete object – such as a WordPress post – can be very large, and sometimes it’s only one or two fields you need. If you put a string starting with an exclamation point "!" followed by a list of field names, they will be selected from the following object. The following will only show the ID and post_title fields of the post:

<?php do_action('log', 'Loaded the post', '!ID,post_title', $post); ?>

This will produce the log message:

Loaded the post: {ID: 1932, post_title: Test page}

If you do this with an array of objects, those fields will be selected from each of them. The following will output a list of post ID s:

<?php do_action('log', 'Loaded %s posts', count($posts), '!ID', $posts); ?>

This will produce the log message:

Loaded 3 posts: [1932, 1594, 1103]

Coloured logs

If you have coloured logging switched on, values will appear in different colours to indicate their type. This can make for quicker scanning of log files. To enable coloured logs, tick the Coloured logs checkbox on the settings page. Then use the log.sh script, included with this plugin, to decode and display the coloured log files.