Structured Logging in Go with log/slog

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So you want to use the new shiny structured logging library in golang

log/slog#

slog (a structured logging library in Go) has been included in the Go standard library starting from version 1.21. While Go already had a logging library, it was considered too simple for most use cases. For starters, it lacked the leveled logging feature. To achieve leveled logging, you had to create multiple loggers with the level as a prefix and direct them all to the same io.Writer. This package, spf13/jwalterweatherman, accomplishes exactly that. There are also several third-party, excellent logging libraries available for structured logging, such as rs/zerolog, uber-go/zap, and sirupsen/logrus, to name a few. Now that structured logging is included in the standard library, let’s give it a try.

Trace Logging in Golang

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: This article is not about runtime/trace package or trace profiling functionalities.

Tracing is used to observe code execution paths. If you log something in a function and you see that output in the log file, then you know that the function has been executed. There is a log level defined in different logger implementations called TRACE, which is the lowest log level in most loggers. The log won’t be present in the production environment, but when debugging, you’ll receive the traces. This is useful in situations where a debugger is not accessible.

Logging on random thoughts

Structured Logging in Go with log/slog

log/slog#

Trace Logging in Golang