brew logging?

[teoljungberg]

I would really like the feaure with a log with all of the installed, updated and upgraded formulas and/or packages that brew outputs after each command.
This to be able to search the log to really see what happened when you upgraded git for example.
Mayby to save this log with Cache?
Am I the only one who would find this a handy feature?

[jacknagel]

Seems like it would be a lot of maintenance work for little gain. What would the use case be, i.e. what information would it provide that isn't supplied by the UI currently?

[teoljungberg]

If you install and/or upgrade a package like git or rtorrent there is quite a lot of text that flows by your eyes. I would find it handy to be able to open up that logfile and search up git and see what really happened.
And to answer your question Jack, since there occasionally is a lot of info what grows beyond my buffer I can't review it post install or, quite often, even during installation

[Sharpie]

In my experience, the logfile is really only useful in two situations:

• When a build fails.
• During formula development when the formula is being debugged.

Since these situations both occur "in the moment", there really isn't any use for digging up log files from a day or a week ago.

If your buffer is too small to give you access to the full scrollback, just set it to a larger or unlimited size. Capturing install output is also pretty easy:

brew install <formula> 2>&1 | tee install.log

I don't think there will be much motivation for implementing this feature. That being said, if you feel like implementing it yourself, we would definitely entertain a pull request.

[teoljungberg]

@Sharpie, thanks!
I'll use tee install.log as a pipe, when needed.