[arch-projects] [netctl][PATCH] beautify error output

[Jouke Witteveen]

On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 5:18 PM, Jouke Witteveen <j.witteveen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 5:13 PM, Dave Reisner <d at falconindy.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 02:06:49PM +0200, Jouke Witteveen wrote:
>>> Also: tag error messages as systemd error messages when the messages are
>>> not directed to the terminal.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Jouke Witteveen <j.witteveen at gmail.com>
>>> ---
>>>  src/lib/globals | 8 ++++++--
>>>  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/src/lib/globals b/src/lib/globals
>>> index a2a281f..66f3cee 100644
>>> --- a/src/lib/globals
>>> +++ b/src/lib/globals
>>> @@ -15,7 +15,11 @@ report_notice() {
>>>  }
>>>
>>>  report_error() {
>>> -    echo "$*"
>>> +    echo "$*" | if [[ -t 2 ]]; then
>>> +        (tput bold; tput setaf 1; cat; tput sgr0) >&2
>>
>> Useless subshell. { cmd; cmd; } >&2 is what you want.
>
> Indeed, that's what was meant.
>
>>> +    else
>>> +        systemd-cat -t "$(basename "$0")" -p err
>>
>> I don't really understand the need for this. If stderr isn't a
>> terminal, isn't it reasonable to assume that this is being called by the
>> daemon (which was already started by systemd?) You can just log to
>> stderr and it'll be collected by the journal. Morever, logging in this
>> manner will explicitly disconnect them from the daemon. The -t flag for
>> systemd-cat just adds a SYSLOG_IDENTIFIER field. You can never find
>> these messages with a _SYSTEMD_UNIT filter despite them having what
>> *appears* to be a relationship to the caller.
>
> Unfortunately, systemd does not classify output on stderr as errors.
> As a result, netctl errors are not formatted as such in the journal.
> Many problems people seem to be having with netctl are related to
> their inability to correctly parse the journal. I hoped to give some
> more guidance this way. Are there other ways to add the error
> identifier?

Answering my own question. The answer was on
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/journal-submit.html
which I somehow overlooked in my earlier searches.

I will redo the patch to prefix '<3>' to error messages when not
running interactively.

>>> +    fi
>>>  }
>>>
>>>  report_debug() {
>>> @@ -23,7 +27,7 @@ report_debug() {
>>>  }
>>>
>>>  exit_error() {
>>> -    report_error "$@" >&2
>>> +    report_error "$@"
>>>      exit 1
>>>  }
>>>
>>> --
>>> 1.8.4.1
>>>