Cookbook: Dated logging

The following requires IPython >= 0.13.

The following startup file creates a dated log file of all input and output in the log folder of the given profile. If the file already exists, it appends to it, writing a time stamp indicating the creation of a new session.

This code is an adaptation to IPython 0.12 of a similar logging setup floating around on the internet.

Put in a file 05_log.py in the startup/ directory of your profile. For example, ~/.ipython/profile_default/startup/05_log.py:

from time import strftime
import os.path

ip = get_ipython()

ldir = ip.profile_dir.log_dir 
fname = 'log-' + ip.profile + '-' + strftime('%Y-%m-%d') + ".py"
filename = os.path.join(ldir, fname)
notnew = os.path.exists(filename)

try:
  ip.magic('logstart -o %s append' % filename)
  if notnew:
      ip.logger.log_write(u"# =================================\n")
  else:
      ip.logger.log_write(u"#!/usr/bin/env python\n" )
      ip.logger.log_write(u"# " + fname + "\n" )
      ip.logger.log_write(u"# IPython automatic logging file\n" )
  ip.logger.log_write(u"# " + strftime('%H:%M:%S') + "\n" )
  ip.logger.log_write(u"# =================================\n" )
  print " Logging to "+filename
except RuntimeError:
    print " Already logging to "+ip.logger.logfname

Now whenever you start a session with ipython --profile=default a session log will be stored in ~/.ipython/profile_default/log/log-default-DATE.py.