jLog is a class which offers an api to trace, log messages or dump variables to a log output. the log output can be a classic file or alternately firebug (extension for Firefox browser) or the current response. jLog declares two static methods:

• jLog::log($message, $logAlias) to write a message
• jLog::dump($variable, $message, $logAlias) to write a variable content (concretely it does call var_export)

Default log output for an application is the file var/log/messages.log. You can define another filename or other log outputs. To achieve this, add a new line in your configuration logfile section :

Example :

[logfiles]
default = messages.log
news = modulenews.log
fire = "!firebug"
resp = "!response"

To indicate which log output to use, just fill the last argument of jLog methods with its corresponding alias:

 jLog::log("hello world!"); // write 'hello world' to messages.log (default log)
 jLog::log("hello news!", "news");  // writes 'hello news!' to modulenews.log file
 jLog::dump($record, "enregistrement news", "news"); // dump $record to modulenews.log file ;
 jLog::log("script passed here", "fire" ) ; // you will see 'script passed here' in firebug console 
 jLog::log("script passed here", "resp" ) ; // you will see 'script passed here' in your response output. 

Note : firebug and response log output are only available since Jelix 1.0. They are triggered respectively by "!firebug" and "!response"

To ease collaboration development on a same server, it is also possible to distinguish each developer logs. The only requirement is a unique ip per developer. just use "%ip%" pattern in the log output filename.

[logfiles]
default = "messages_%ip%.log"
news = "%ip%_modulenews.log"

If a developer works on 192.168.1.2 host, his logs will be 192.168.1.2_modulenews.log and messages_192.168.1.2.log

Starting from Jelix v1.0, date and time can also be used in log filenames. Just include some of : %Y% (year), %m% (month), %d% (day), %H% (hour) pattern in log filenames.