Log viewer for colorized logs

Rails
1

Is there a decent log viewer for colorized log files?

less -r for me doesn’t work well, as it sometimes clears the screen.

I’d like:

  • Either a console type less viewer which just removes the colors
  • Or, even better, a console one which handles the colors without
    clearing the screen
  • Or, best of all, a GUI viewer - maybe even with color

I use both Windows and Linux. Any recommendations?

2

List R. wrote:

Is there a decent log viewer for colorized log files?

less -r for me doesn’t work well, as it sometimes clears the screen.

I’d like:

  • Either a console type less viewer which just removes the colors
  • Or, even better, a console one which handles the colors without
    clearing the screen
  • Or, best of all, a GUI viewer - maybe even with color

I use both Windows and Linux. Any recommendations?

I know this isn’t what you’re looking for but it works. Just use ‘cat’
in a GUI terminal window and scroll back if the log file isn’t very long
or ‘tail -n x’ if it is (on linux of course).

–J

3

tail -f gives me colorized log tail with follow in linux.

List R. wrote:

jonathan wrote:

List R. wrote:

Is there a decent log viewer for colorized log files?

less -r for me doesn’t work well, as it sometimes clears the screen.

I’d like:

  • Either a console type less viewer which just removes the colors
  • Or, even better, a console one which handles the colors without
    clearing the screen
  • Or, best of all, a GUI viewer - maybe even with color

I use both Windows and Linux. Any recommendations?

I know this isn’t what you’re looking for but it works. Just use ‘cat’
in a GUI terminal window and scroll back if the log file isn’t very long
or ‘tail -n x’ if it is (on linux of course).

–J

Correct, but they don’t handle color (rails uses ANSI escape codes for
it). I know color can be shut off, but I find it quite useful.

4

Chris DiMartino wrote:

tail -f gives me colorized log tail with follow in linux.

Right, but if you read the original post: I am looking for a way of
going through log files, not watching logs as they stream by.
Something like less, which lets me page back and forth, and search
easily.

More for operations and admin than development (“What happened at 3:00PM
that our orders went down?!”)

5

On 18/12/05, List R. [email protected] wrote:

Is there a decent log viewer for colorized log files?

lv -c log/development.log

seems to do the job :wink:

6

Bragi Ragnarson wrote:

On 18/12/05, List R. [email protected] wrote:

Is there a decent log viewer for colorized log files?

lv -c log/development.log

seems to do the job :wink:

Sounds great!
It’s on neither my RedHat ES 4, or my Windows XP, and Googling for any
two letters turns up a lot of noise. Mind if I ask you to post a link?

–
$ which lv
/usr/bin/which: no lv in
(/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/lstrecv/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/sbin:/usr/sbin)

7

On 18/12/05, List R. [email protected] wrote:

lv -c log/development.log

Sounds great!
It’s on neither my RedHat ES 4, or my Windows XP, and Googling for any
two letters turns up a lot of noise. Mind if I ask you to post a link?

–
$ which lv
/usr/bin/which: no lv in
(/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/lstrecv/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/sbin:/usr/sbin)

It was installed by default on my Fedora Core 4 and according to
http://rpm.pbone.net/ rpms are available for all open Redhat-based
distributions. So you should be able to install it using up2date or
whatever RHES4 provides. And you can always use Fedora Core 3 rpms as
fallback.

You can also find it here if you would like to compile it from source
(it compiles and runs on MS platforms too):

http://www.ff.iij4u.or.jp/~nrt/lv/

–
Bragi Ragnarson

8

On Sunday 18 December 2005 08:52, List R. wrote:

I use both Windows and Linux. Any recommendations?
Did you try “less -R” ? According to the man, should “keep track of the
screen
apearance”.

Francois

9

jonathan wrote:

List R. wrote:

Is there a decent log viewer for colorized log files?

less -r for me doesn’t work well, as it sometimes clears the screen.

I’d like:

  • Either a console type less viewer which just removes the colors
  • Or, even better, a console one which handles the colors without
    clearing the screen
  • Or, best of all, a GUI viewer - maybe even with color

I use both Windows and Linux. Any recommendations?

I know this isn’t what you’re looking for but it works. Just use ‘cat’
in a GUI terminal window and scroll back if the log file isn’t very long
or ‘tail -n x’ if it is (on linux of course).

–J

Correct, but they don’t handle color (rails uses ANSI escape codes for
it). I know color can be shut off, but I find it quite useful.