Log files

Log files record all the messages that you normally see in your terminal into a text file. Because these messages are saved to a text file we can:

  • reliably understand what actions the program took
  • help debug problems
  • extract provenance data to make experiments repeatable.

Important details

  • Every time AP.exe runs a log file is saved in the Logs folder
  • The Logs folder is in the same directory as the AnalysisPrograms.exe program
  • The logs will always be named log_<SOMEDATE>.txt where <SOMEDATE> is replaced with a date time stamp.
  • The latest 50 logs will be kept, after which they are deleted
  • We recommend you save every log from every analysis you run
    • This will soon be easier once #157 is complete.

Detailed explanation

Because AP.exe saves all the messages to a text file we can:

  • look at the messages anytime to sort out problems
  • send the log files to other people so they can sort out problems
  • refer to these logs to determine the provenance of results

The last point is really important. To support reproducible science we need to know what program, which configuration, and what data was used to generate the results.

Our log files record this information. The start of every log file has the following information:

  • The date the program was started
  • The version of AP.exe
  • The type of build (either DEBUG or RELEASE)
  • The date the program was compiled
  • The unique id of the source code provided by Git (commonly known as the hash)
  • The branch that was used to get the source code (usually this is master)
  • The arguments the program received (which detail which input file and what config file were used)

Here is an example extract that shows all of the above information:

2018-03-21T13:44:45.8675459+10:00 [1] INFO  CleanLogger - QUT Ecoacoustics Analysis Programs - version 18.03.3.5 (DEBUG build, 2018-03-19 12:23) 
Git branch-version: master-517b65bca92f1ed6ce3ea207a5660ff473222424-CI:123
Copyright QUT 2018
2018-03-21T13:44:45.9035316+10:00 [1] INFO  LogFileOnly - Executable called with these arguments: 
"C:\Work\GitHub\audio-analysis\src\AnalysisPrograms\bin\Debug\AnalysisPrograms.exe" -l 7