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IMPORTANT

This library has been archived and will be receiving no further updates. Please switch to touchlab/Kermit for a replacement library, to consolidate the massive spread of Kotlin logging libraries. See discussion here for more context.

Clog

Zero-config Kotlin multiplatform logging utility, strongly inspired by the SLF4J and Timber APIs.

Clog is designed with the following goals in mind:

• Zero setup required: just add the dependency and start logging
• Support natural logging for each platform: use actual/expect declarations to provide natural logging targets for each platform, rather than printing everything to stdout
• Be a central logger: Unlike many other Kotlin/Multiplatform loggers which simply delegate to SLF4j, Clog is designed to be the central logger instead of a wrapper around another logger. Clog is an SLF4J implementation, so logs from other libraries will be passed through to Clog and can be configured and filtered using Clog's APIs.
• Support existing standards for logging: with the API of Timber and semantics compatible with SLF4J, Clog is a natural way to transition your JVM-specific logging into the Kotlin/Multiplatform world
• Customization is there if you need it: the Clog singleton can be easily configured with custom classes to apply your own formatting, filtering, and logging targets
• Immutable loggers: The ClogProfile and all classes implementing the logger are immutable, for multithreaded performance and safety. The global Clog instance is updated only by swapping out the backing instance, and you're free to bypass the global instance entirely and inject loggers instead.

Supported Platforms/Features

Platform	Logging Target	ANSI Colors	Tag Inference	Message Formatting	SLF4J Integration	SLF4J MDC Support
JVM	System.out	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Android	android.util.Log	❌	✅	✅	✅	❌
JS	console.log	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌
iOS	NSLog	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌
{.table}

Installation

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

// for plain JVM or Android projects
dependencies {
    implementation("io.github.copper-leaf:clog-core:{{site.version}}")
}

// for multiplatform projects
kotlin {
    sourceSets {
        val commonMain by getting {
            dependencies {
                implementation("io.github.copper-leaf:clog-core:{{site.version}}")
            }
        }
    }
}

Usage

Clog's logging levels generally follow the SLF4J logging levels, and the API follows a similar API as android.util.log or Timber.

Clog Level	Clog Method	SLF4J Level
Verbose	Clog.v()	logger.trace()
Debug	Clog.d()	logger.debug()
Info	Clog.i()	logger.info()
Default	Clog.log()	N/A
Warning	Clog.w()	logger.warn()
Error	Clog.e()	logger.error()
Fatal	Clog.wtf()	N/A
{.table}

In general, a log consists of a message (which may be formatted with params in SLF4J-style), a tag, and a log level. Below is a description of the API

Normal log messages

Tag will be inferred on supported platforms, based on the calling class

Clog.v("message")
Clog.d("message")
Clog.i("message")
Clog.log("message")
Clog.w("message")
Clog.e("message")
Clog.wtf("message")

Logs with custom tags

Clog.tag("tag").v("message")
Clog.tag("tag").d("message")
Clog.tag("tag").i("message")
Clog.tag("tag").w("message")
Clog.tag("tag").e("message")
Clog.tag("tag").wtf("message")

Log exceptions

val e = RuntimeException()
Clog.v(e)
Clog.d(e)
Clog.i(e)
Clog.log(e)
Clog.w(e)
Clog.e(e)
Clog.wtf(e)

Message Formatting

SLF4j-style formatting is supported, replacing {} with params passed to the logging call. This is supported on all platforms and all log levels.

val foo = "bar"
Clog.i("message {}", foo) // logs 'message bar'

Priority Filter

Messages and exceptions can be filtered out by priority.

Clog.setMinPriority(Clog.Priority.ERROR)

Tag whitelisting/blacklisting

Messages can be filtered out by tags.

Clog.addTagToWhitelist("tag1")
Clog.addTagToBlacklist("tag2")

Lambda DSL

Using the Clog DSL, simple strings can be logged lazily. The lambda is only evaluated if the logging level and tag is enabled. By default, messages logged with the lambda DSL are not formatted, but it can be re-enabled by using format() inside the lambda.

Normal log messages

import clog.dsl.*

v   { "message" }
d   { "message" }
i   { "message" }
w   { "message" }
e   { "message" }
wtf { "message" }

Logs with custom tags

import clog.dsl.*

v("tag")   { "message" }
d("tag")   { "message" }
i("tag")   { "message" }
w("tag")   { "message" }
e("tag")   { "message" }
wtf("tag") { "message" }

Message formatting

import clog.dsl.*

val foo = "bar" 
v   { format("message {}", foo) } // logs 'message bar'
d   { format("message {}", foo) } // logs 'message bar'
i   { format("message {}", foo) } // logs 'message bar'
w   { format("message {}", foo) } // logs 'message bar'
e   { format("message {}", foo) } // logs 'message bar'
wtf { format("message {}", foo) } // logs 'message bar'

SLF4J

On plain JVM and Android platforms, Clog is set up as an SLF4J binding; that is, SLF4J will pass log messages through to Clog. Other libraries and frameworks logging to SLF4J will be formatted as normal Clog logs for uniform log output, and so Clog can be used as a simple SLF4J binding when you don't want to configure Logback. Additionally, SLF Mapped Diagnostic Context (MDC) is supported, and context data can be added to log messages with the standard format of %X{mdcKey}.

val slf4j: Logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(JvmClogSlf4jTest::class.java)

MDC.put("akey", "avalue")
slf4j.trace("message %X{akey}") // logs 'message avalue' to the Clog logger

More Customization

Clog is designed to work out-of-the-box with absolutely zero config required to start logging with it. However, you can customize all components of Clog to your needs. Clog is comprised of several components wrapped in a ClogProfile, which is the global instance of Clog.getInstance(). You can customize your Clog by creating a new Profile with your custom components:

val newProfile = ClogProfile(...)
Clog.setProfile(newProfile)

You can also use the Clog.updateProfile helper to create a profile based on the current global instance:

Clog.updateProfile { it.copy(logger = newLogger) }

The table below describes the classes that can be customized in the ClogProfile, along with their default implementation for each supported platform:

Interface	Description	JVM	Android	JS	iOS
ClogTagProvider	Infers a tag if one is not provided to the logging call	DefaultTagProvider()	DefaultTagProvider()	DefaultTagProvider()	DefaultTagProvider()
ClogMessageFormatter	Formats a message string to pass to the ClogLogger	Slf4jMessageFormatter(DefaultMessageFormatter())	DefaultMessageFormatter()	DefaultMessageFormatter()	DefaultMessageFormatter()
ClogFilter	Determines whether to format and log a message	DefaultFilter()	DefaultFilter()	DefaultFilter()	DefaultFilter()
ClogLogger	Prints a formatted log to a lower-level platform-specific logger or console	DefaultLogger()	AndroidLogger()	JsConsoleLogger()	NsLogger()
{.table}

Recipes

Turn off logging in production

val isDebug = ...
Clog.configureLoggingInProduction(isDebug)

Use a custom logger

Replaces the current logging target with a custom one.

val customLogger = object : ClogLogger {
    override fun log(priority: Clog.Priority, tag: String?, message: String) {
        ...
    }
    override fun logException(priority: Clog.Priority, tag: String?, throwable: Throwable) {
        ...
    }
}
Clog.updateProfile { it.copy(logger = customLogger) }

Using multiple logging targets

Add an additional logger to the current instance. Calling addLogger multiple times will continue adding loggers, and messages will be delegated to all loggers.

val customLogger = object : ClogLogger {
    override fun log(priority: Clog.Priority, tag: String?, message: String) {
        ...
    }
    override fun logException(priority: Clog.Priority, tag: String?, throwable: Throwable) {
        ...
    }
}
Clog.addLogger(customLogger)

Using Clog with dependency injection

// Given some classes that depend on a logger
class Controller(val logger: ClogProfile) 

// just declare a ClogProfile singleton with any configurations you need 
val module = module { 
  single { ClogProfile() } 
  single { Controller(get()) } 
}