Re: Can we have process names and stdout / stderr indication to more efficiently parse build logs? (was: Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: escape sequences in logs)

[William Hubbs]

On Tue, Sep 03, 2013 at 10:25:19AM +0200, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> >>>>> On Tue, 3 Sep 2013, Tom Wijsman wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 2 Sep 2013 14:21:52 -0500
> > William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> wrote:
>
> >> I can see why someone might want to use escape codes for color
> >> displays, etc. However, imo, escape codes do not belong in log files.
>
> > They belong there so future display can remain colorful.
>
> > Why do they not belong there? What do people have to do who want
> > them?
>
> Escape sequences have been designed for communication with peripheral
> devices, not for markup or as a storage format.
>
> Also "future colorful display" generally won't be portabe because
> escape sequences depend on the setting of the TERM variable. (And
> again, software that emits them with TERM=dumb or TERM unset is
> broken.)

Ulrich has summed this up well here. The bottom line is that escape
sequences are for communicating with the user's peripheral devices.
Since yours may not be the same as the user's who created the log, you
don't even know that yours will respond the same way.

I don't care what goes to the user's terminal, but these escape
sequences do not belong in log files.

William