Comments on: User readable logging of YaST modules

By: Jiří Suchomel

Jiří Suchomel — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:50:08 +0000

There are some contradicting wishes in the comments above, IMHO:

– 3rd version is understandable, while 2nd version is too much technical
– let’s log exact commands in the log (which is closer to 2nd version)

So, what exactly you don’t like in that 2nd version (which is logging the commands)? Do you think the diffs make it too technical?

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:12:18 +0000

IMHO the most important part is to show the exact commands used (exact as in copying the commands from the log and executing them in a console has to lead to the same result) since that’s pretty much what that logging is good for (otherwise the normal log is good enough).

This way people can easily learn how to do something manually in a console by simply monitoring the log while doing stuff in Yast.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:41:30 +0000

You may want to consider enclosing commands (system calls) in square brackets, to distinguish them from file I/O operations and to prevent issues with command lines that may already contain quotes and parenthesis. Example:

2009-02-09 11:05:49 rivendell File Written: ‘/tmp/pre-install.sh’
2009-02-09 11:05:49 rivendell Executing: [ /tmp/pre-install.sh ]

It makes finding the commands in a sea of log file lines a bit easier – especially for scripts that scan those files. The added pre and post spaces are just make it a bit easier to ‘cut-n-paste’ those commands, if needed.

By: andrew

andrew — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:43:10 +0000

Speaking as a user the third version is definitely the most readable and understandable. I do agree with the comment from Andre that adding the actual command that deoes the action would be valuable. And certainly a great learning tool. Version 2 is getting very technical again and becomong difficult to follow. Remember the whole idea here is for a standard user to be able to read and understand the log.

Great work so far. Keep it up.

By: André

André — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:41:20 +0000

Whoops, I must have been blind 😉

Then I vote for the second variant.

By: Jiří Suchomel

Jiří Suchomel — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:53:25 +0000

> I agree but I would like to see the command mentioned, the user has used to do the stuff.

This is what you can see in the second variant (with the diffs):

2009-02-09 11:05:49 rivendell Home directory moved: ‘/bin/mv /local/home/bb /local/home/aa’

I wanted to write that the last option (with “UI info”) is not really usable

By: André

André — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:20:56 +0000

“I think the last method is getting more talkative and actually is not more helpful.”

I agree but I would like to see the command mentioned, the user has used to do the stuff.

Like
2009-02-06 15:54:11 rivendell (UI info) User ‘bb’ renamed to ‘aa’ (mv ‘bb’ ‘aa’)

Just to have the chance to learn more about the commandline.