node-bunyan-lite/README.md

Bunyan -- a JSON Logger for node.js servers.

Server logs should be structured. JSON's a good format. Let's do that: a log
record is one line of `JSON.stringify`'d output. Let's also specify some common
names for the requisite and common fields for a log record (see below).

Also: log4j is way more than you need.


# Current Status

Basic functionality there. Still a fair amount of planned work... most
importantly the clarifying of required and suggested fields.

Currently supports node 0.4+, but I'll probably make the jump to node 0.6+ as a
base soonish.


# Usage

**The usual.** All loggers must provide a "service" name. This is somewhat akin
to log4j logger "name", but Bunyan doesn't do hierarchical logger names.

    $ cat hi.js
    var Logger = require('bunyan');
    var log = new Logger({service: "myapp"});
    log.info("hi");

**Log records are JSON.** "hostname", "time" and "v" (the Bunyan log
format version) are added for you.

    $ node hi.js
    {"service":"myapp","hostname":"banana.local","level":2,"msg":"hi","time":"2012-01-31T00:07:44.216Z","v":0}

The full `log.{trace|debug|...|fatal}(...)` API is:

    log.info();     // returns a boolean: is the "info" level enabled?
    log.info("hi"); // log a simple string message
    log.info("hi %s", bob, anotherVar); // uses `util.format` for msg formatting
    log.info({foo: "bar"}, "hi");       // adds "foo" field to log record


## bunyan tool

A `bunyan` tool is provided **for pretty-printing bunyan logs** and, eventually,
for filtering (e.g. `| bunyan -c 'level>3'`). This shows the default output
(which is fluid right now) and indented-JSON output. More output formats will
be added, including support for custom formats.

    $ node hi.js | ./bin/bunyan  # CLI tool to filter/pretty-print JSON logs.
    [2012-01-31T00:08:11.387Z] INFO: myapp on banana.local: hi
    
    $ node hi.js | ./bin/bunyan -o json
    {
      "service": "myapp",
      "hostname": "banana.local",
      "level": 2,
      "msg": "hi",
      "time": "2012-01-31T00:10:00.676Z",
      "v": 0
    }


## streams

By default, log output is to stdout (**stream**) and at the "info" level.
Explicitly that looks like:

    var log = new Logger({service: "myapp", stream: process.stdout, 
      level: "info"});

That is an abbreviated form for a single stream. **You can defined multiple
streams at different levels**.

    var log = new Logger({
      service: "amon",
      streams: [
        {
          level: "info",
          stream: process.stdout, // log INFO and above to stdout
        },
        {
          level: "error",
          path: "tmp/error.log"   // log ERROR and above to a file
        }
      ]
    });


## log.child

A `log.child(...)` is provided to **specialize a logger for a sub-component**.
The following will have log records from "Wuzzle" instances use exactly the
same config as its parent, plus include the "component" field.

    var log = new Logger(...);

    ...
    
    function Wuzzle(options) {
      this.log = options.log;
      this.log.info("creating a wuzzle")
    }
    Wuzzle.prototype.woos = function () {
      this.log.warn("This wuzzle is woosey.")
    }
    
    var wuzzle = new Wuzzle({log: log.child({component: "wuzzle"})});
    wuzzle.woos();
    log.info("done with the wuzzle")

* * *

An example and a hack: The [node-restify](https://github.com/mcavage/node-restify)
framework integrates bunyan. One feature is that each restify request handler
includes a `req.log` logger that is:

    log.child({req_id: <unique request id>}, true)

Apps using restify can then use `req.log` and have all such log records
include the unique request id (as "req_id"). Handy.

*What is that `true`?* It is a small bunyan hack by which you can assert that
you're just adding simple fields to the child logger. This makes `log.child`
10x faster and, hence, never a worry for slowing down HTTP request handling.
See the changelog for node-bunyan 0.3.0 for details.

* * *

## serializers

Bunyan has a concept of **"serializers" to produce a JSON-able object from a
JavaScript object**, so your can easily do the following:

    log.info({req: <request object>}, "something about handling this request");

Association is by log record field name, "req" in this example, so this
requires a registered serializer something like this:

    function reqSerializer(req) {
      return {
        method: req.method,
        url: req.url,
        headers: req.headers
      }
    }
    var log = new Logger({
      ...
      serializers: {
        req: reqSerializer
      }
    });

Or this:

    var log = new Logger({
      ...
      serializers: {req: Logger.stdSerializers.req}
    });

because Buyan includes a small set of standard serializers. To use all the
standard serializers you can use:

    var log = new Logger({
      ...
      serializers: Logger.stdSerializers
    });

*Note: Your own serializers should never throw, otherwise you'll get an
ugly message on stderr from Bunyan (along with the traceback) and the field
in your log record will be replaced with a short error message.*

## src

The **call source file, line and function** (if not at the global level) can
be added to log records by using the `src: true` config option:

    var log = new Logger({src: true, ...});

This adds the call source info with the 'src' field, like this:

    {
      "service": "src-example",
      "hostname": "banana.local",
      "component": "wuzzle",
      "level": 4,
      "msg": "This wuzzle is woosey.",
      "time": "2012-02-06T04:19:35.605Z",
      "src": {
        "file": "/Users/trentm/tm/node-bunyan/examples/src.js",
        "line": 20,
        "func": "Wuzzle.woos"
      },
      "v": 0
    }

**WARNING: Determining the call source info is slow. Never use this option
in production.**


# Levels

- "fatal" (6): the service is going to stop or become unusable now
- "error" (5): fatal for a particular request, but the service continues servicing other requests
- "warn" (4): a note on something that should probably be looked at by an operator
- "info" (3): detail on regular operation
- "debug" (2): anything else, i.e. too verbose to be included in "info" level.
- "trace" (1): logging from external libraries used by your app

"debug" should be used sparingly. Information that will be useful to debug
errors *post mortem* should usually be included in "info" messages if it's
generally relevant or else with the corresponding "error" event. Don't rely on
spewing mostly irrelevant debug messages all the time and sifting through them
when an error occurs.

Integers are used for the actual level values (1 for "trace", ..., 6 for
"fatal") and constants are defined for the (Logger.TRACE ... Logger.DEBUG).
The lowercase level names are aliases supported in the API.


# Log Record Fields

This section will describe *rules* for the Bunyan log format: field names,
field meanings, required fields, etc. However, a Bunyan library doesn't
strictly enforce all these rules while records are being emitted. For example,
Bunyan will add a `time` field with the correct format to your log records,
but you can specify your own. It is the caller's responsibility to specify
the appropriate format.

The reason for the above leniency is because IMO logging a message should
never break your app. This leads to this rule of logging: **a thrown
exception from `log.info(...)` or equivalent (other than for calling with the
incorrect signature) is always a bug in Bunyan.**


A typical Bunyan log record looks like this:

    {"service":"myserver","hostname":"banana.local","req":{"method":"GET","url":"/path?q=1#anchor","headers":{"x-hi":"Mom","connection":"close"}},"level":3,"msg":"start request","time":"2012-02-03T19:02:46.178Z","v":0}

Pretty-printed:

    {
      "service": "myserver",
      "hostname": "banana.local",
      "req": {
        "method": "GET",
        "url": "/path?q=1#anchor",
        "headers": {
          "x-hi": "Mom",
          "connection": "close"
        },
        "remoteAddress": "120.0.0.1",
        "remotePort": 51244
      },
      "level": 3,
      "msg": "start request",
      "time": "2012-02-03T19:02:57.534Z",
      "v": 0
    }


Core fields:

- `v`: Required. Integer. Added by Bunion. Cannot be overriden.
  This is the Bunyan log format version (`require('bunyan').LOG_VERSION`).
  The log version is a single integer. `0` is until I release a version
  "1.0.0" of node-bunyan. Thereafter, starting with `1`, this will be
  incremented if there is any backward incompatible change to the log record
  format. Details will be in "CHANGES.md" (the change log).
- `level`: Required. Integer. Added by Bunion. Cannot be overriden.
  See the "Levels" section.
- `service`: Required. String. Provided at Logger creation.
  You must specify a service name for your logger when creating it.
- `hostname`: Required. String. Provided or determined at Logger creation.
  You can specify your hostname at Logger creation or it will be retrieved
  vi `os.hostname()`.
- `time`: Required. String. Added by Bunion. Can be overriden.
  The date and time of the event in [ISO 8601
  Extended Format](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601) format and in UTC,
  as from
  [`Date.toISOString()`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date/toISOString).
- `msg`: Required. String.
  Every `log.debug(...)` et al call must provide a log message.
- `src`: Optional. Object giving log call source info. This is added
  automatically by Bunyan if the "src: true" config option is given to the
  Logger. Never use in production as this is really slow.


Go ahead and add more fields, and nest ones are fine (and recommended) as
well. This is why we're using JSON. Some suggestions and best practices
follow (feedback from actual users welcome).


Recommended/Best Practice Fields:

- `err`: Object. A caught JS exception. Log that thing with
  `log.error({err: err}, "oops")` and **use the `Logger.stdSerializers.err`**
  serializer for it. See "examples/err.js".
- `req_id`: String. A request identifier. Including this field in all logging
  tied to handling a particular request to your server is strongly suggested.
  This allows post analysis of logs to easily collate all related logging
  for a request. This really shines when you have a SOA with multiple services
  and you carry a single request ID from the top API down through all APIs
  (as [node-restify](https://github.com/mcavage/node-restify) facilitates
  with its 'X-Request-Id' header).
- `req`: An HTTP server request. Bunyan provides `Logger.stdSerializers.req`
  to serialize a request with a suggested set of keys. Example:
  
        {
          "method": "GET",
          "url": "/path?q=1#anchor",
          "headers": {
            "x-hi": "Mom",
            "connection": "close"
          },
          "remoteAddress": "120.0.0.1",
          "remotePort": 51244
        }

- `res`: An HTTP server response. Bunyan provides `Logger.stdSerializers.res`
  to serialize a response with a suggested set of keys. Example: 

        {
          "statusCode": 200,
          "header": "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\nContent-Type: text/plain\r\nConnection: keep-alive\r\nTransfer-Encoding: chunked\r\n\r\n"
        }


Other fields to consider:

- `req.username`: Authenticated user (or for a 401, the user attempting to
  auth).
- Some mechanism to calculate response latency. "restify" users will have
  a "X-Response-Time" header. A `latency` custom field would be fine.
- `req.body`: If you know that request bodies are small (common in APIs,
  for example), then logging the request body is good.


# Streams

A "stream" is Bunyan's name for an output for log messages. It expects a
[Writable Stream](http://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/all.html#writable_Stream)
interface. See above for some examples of specifying streams. Supported streams
are:

- A writable "stream". Often this is one of the std handles (`process.stdout` or
  `process.stderr`), but it can be anything you want supporting the node
  writable stream interface, e.g. `fs.createWriteStream`.
- A file. Will append to the given "path". 


# License

MIT.


# Future

See "TODO.md", but basically:

- Ring-buffer support for storing last N debug messages
  (or whatever) in memory to support debugability without too much log load.

- More `bunyan` output formats and filtering features.

- Think about a bunyan dashboard that supports organizing and viewing logs
  from multiple hosts and services.

- Syslog support.

- Some speed comparisons with others to get a feel for Bunyan's speed.