Logging

The Holoscan SDK uses the Logger module to convey messages to the user. These messages are categorized into different severity levels (see below) to inform users of the severity of a message and as a way to control the number and verbosity of messages that are printed to the terminal. There are two settings which can be used for this purpose:

• Logger level

• Logger format

Logger Level

Messages that are logged using the Logger module have a severity level, e.g., messages can be categorized as INFO, WARN, ERROR, etc.

The default logging level for an application is to print out messages with severity INFO or above, i.e., messages that are categorized as INFO, WARN, ERROR, and CRITICAL. You can modify this default by calling set_log_level() (C++/Python) in the application code to override the SDK default logging level and give it one of the following log levels.

• TRACE

• DEBUG

• INFO

• WARN

• ERROR

• CRITICAL

• OFF

            

            
#include <holoscan/holoscan.hpp>

int main() {
  holoscan::set_log_level(holoscan::LogLevel::WARN);
  // ...
  return 0;
}
        

            

            
from holoscan.logger import set_log_level

def main():
    set_log_level(LogLevel::WARN)
    # ...

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
        

Additionally, at runtime, the user can set the HOLOSCAN_LOG_LEVEL environment variable to one of the values listed above. This provides users with the flexibility to enable printing of diagnostic information for debugging purposes when an issue occurs.

            

            
export HOLOSCAN_LOG_LEVEL=TRACE
        

Precedence

If the HOLOSCAN_LOG_LEVEL environment variable is set, this setting is used to set the logging level. If the environment variable is not set, then the application setting is used if available. If not, the SDK default setting of INFO is used as the logging level.

When a message is printed out, the default message format shows the message severity level, filename:linenumber, and the message to be printed.

For example:

            

            
[info] [ping_multi_port.cpp:114] Rx message value1: 51
[info] [ping_multi_port.cpp:115] Rx message value2: 54
        

You can modify this default by calling set_log_pattern() (C++/Python) in the application code to override the SDK default logging format.

The pattern string can be one of the following pre-defined values

• SHORT : prints message severity level, and message

• DEFAULT : prints message severity level, filename:linenumber, and message

• LONG : prints timestamp, application, message severity level, filename:linenumber, and message

• FULL : prints timestamp, thread id, application, message severity level, filename:linenumber, and message

            

            
#include <holoscan/holoscan.hpp>

int main() {
  holoscan::set_log_pattern("SHORT")
  // ...
  return 0;
}
        

            

            
from holoscan.logger import set_log_pattern

def main():
    set_log_pattern("SHORT")
    # ...

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
        

With this logger format, the above application would display messages with the following format:

            

            
[info] Rx message value1: 51
[info] Rx message value2: 54
        

Alternatively, the pattern string can be a custom pattern to customize the logger format. Using this string pattern

            

            
"[%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%e] [%n] [%^%l%$] [%s:%#] %v";
        

would display messages with the following format:

            

            
[2023-06-27 14:22:36.073] [holoscan] [info] [ping_multi_port.cpp:114] Rx message value1: 51
[2023-06-27 14:22:36.073] [holoscan] [info] [ping_multi_port.cpp:115] Rx message value2: 54
        

For more details on custom formatting and details of each flag, please see the spdlog wiki page.

Additionally, at runtime, the user can also set the HOLOSCAN_LOG_FORMAT environment variable to modify the logger format. The accepted string pattern is the same as the string pattern for the set_log_pattern() api mentioned above.

The C++ API uses the HOLOSCAN_LOG_XXX() macros to log messages in the application. These macros use the fmtlib format string syntax for their format strings.

Users of the Python API should use the built-in logging module to log messages.