Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: escape sequences in logs

[William Hubbs]

On Mon, Sep 02, 2013 at 09:41:28PM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> Dnia 2013-09-02, o godz. 14:21:52
> William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> napisał(a):
>
> > On Mon, Sep 02, 2013 at 01:33:19PM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> > > Dnia 2013-09-01, o godz. 16:49:34
> > > William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> napisał(a):
> > >
> > > > On Sat, Aug 31, 2013 at 10:48:32PM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> > > > > Dnia 2013-08-31, o godz. 11:26:30
> > > > > Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> napisał(a):
> > > > >
> > > > > > >>>>> On Sat, 31 Aug 2013, Michał Górny wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > And time for a small update.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > In git-r3_checkout:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >             git --no-pager diff --color --stat \
> > > > > >                 ${old_commit_id}..${new_commit_id}
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'd rather omit the --color option, otherwise log files will contain
> > > > > > escape sequences.
> > > > >
> > > > > I'd rather leave it. The diff is more for pretty-printing anyway, it
> > > > > shouldn't really matter in the logs.
> > > >
> > > > Please don't. I also do not want escape sequences in log files.
> > >
> > > Ok, '--color' removed. However, I think we should work something out to
> > > get both parties satisfied. Maybe portage feature or a tool to 'uncruft'
> > > logs from escape sequences since many people actually benefit from them.
> >
> > All,
> >
> > I'm starting a new thread on this, because I think it might warrant some
> > discussion.
> >
> > 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.
>
> Well, colors are not the only thing that uses escape sequences. They
> are used pretty often for various kinds of progress reporting --
> percentages, progress bars. Many tools simply don't implement any other
> kind of progress reporting, so sometimes it's either escape sequences
> or long waiting with no signs of life.
>
> > mgorny says many people benefit from having escape codes in log
> > files, but I see no benefit from it, and I don't like going through
> > build.log because of them. If you load a build.log into an editor, the
> > escape sequences are basically trash characters that get in the way.
>
> I said people benefit from having them output during the build process.
> Logs are a different thing, that's why I suggested having a feature
> that would remove those from output when generating logs.

There is a NOCOLOR variable you can set in make.conf, but that would
require users to set it, and it also affects the display.

How does portage write build.log?

> > Another consideration is if someone puts messages from a build.log
> > directly in a bug and the messages contain escape codes, this will crash
> > things like pybugz because bugzilla doesn't filter out the escape
> > character.
>
> That is a bug in pybugz and not an argument, you know.

I said "things like pybugz".

Bugzilla allowing control characters in the xml is the issue. The python
xmlrpc library raises an exception for malformed xml because of it, so
there isn't much pybugz, or anything that uses that library, can do
about it.

William