How do I add custom field to Python log format string?

Question

You could use a LoggerAdapter so you don't have to pass the extra info with every logging call:

import logging
extra = {'app_name':'Super App'}

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
syslog = logging.StreamHandler()
formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s %(app_name)s : %(message)s')
syslog.setFormatter(formatter)
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)
logger.addHandler(syslog)

logger = logging.LoggerAdapter(logger, extra)
logger.info('The sky is so blue')

logs (something like)

2013-07-09 17:39:33,596 Super App : The sky is so blue

---

Filters can also be used to add contextual information.

import logging

class AppFilter(logging.Filter):
    def filter(self, record):
        record.app_name = 'Super App'
        return True

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
logger.addFilter(AppFilter())
syslog = logging.StreamHandler()
formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s %(app_name)s : %(message)s')
syslog.setFormatter(formatter)
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)
logger.addHandler(syslog)

logger.info('The sky is so blue')

produces a similar log record.

You need to pass the dict as a parameter to extra to do it that way.

logging.info('Log message', extra={'app_name': 'myapp'})

Proof:

>>> import logging
>>> logging.basicConfig(format="%(foo)s - %(message)s")
>>> logging.warning('test', extra={'foo': 'bar'})
bar - test 

Also, as a note, if you try to log a message without passing the dict, then it will fail.

>>> logging.warning('test')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/logging/__init__.py", line 846, in emit
    msg = self.format(record)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/logging/__init__.py", line 723, in format
    return fmt.format(record)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/logging/__init__.py", line 467, in format
    s = self._fmt % record.__dict__
KeyError: 'foo'
Logged from file <stdin>, line 1

Python3

As of Python3.2 you can now use LogRecordFactory

import logging

logging.basicConfig(format="%(custom_attribute)s - %(message)s")

old_factory = logging.getLogRecordFactory()

def record_factory(*args, **kwargs):
    record = old_factory(*args, **kwargs)
    record.custom_attribute = "my-attr"
    return record

logging.setLogRecordFactory(record_factory)

>>> logging.info("hello")
my-attr - hello

Of course, record_factory can be customized to be any callable and the value of custom_attribute could be updated if you keep a reference to the factory callable.

Why is that better than using Adapters / Filters?

• You do not need to pass your logger around the application
• It actually works with 3rd party libraries that use their own logger (by just calling logger = logging.getLogger(..)) would now have the same log format. (this is not the case with Filters / Adapters where you need to be using the same logger object)
• You can stack/chain multiple factories

Another way is to create a custom LoggerAdapter. This is particularly useful when you can't change the format OR if your format is shared with code that does not send the unique key (in your case app_name):

class LoggerAdapter(logging.LoggerAdapter):
    def __init__(self, logger, prefix):
        super(LoggerAdapter, self).__init__(logger, {})
        self.prefix = prefix

    def process(self, msg, kwargs):
        return '[%s] %s' % (self.prefix, msg), kwargs

And in your code, you would create and initialize your logger as usual:

    logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
    # Add any custom handlers, formatters for this logger
    myHandler = logging.StreamHandler()
    myFormatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s %(message)s')
    myHandler.setFormatter(myFormatter)
    logger.addHandler(myHandler)
    logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)

Finally, you would create the wrapper adapter to add a prefix as needed:

    logger = LoggerAdapter(logger, 'myapp')
    logger.info('The world bores you when you are cool.')

The output will look something like this:

2013-07-09 17:39:33,596 [myapp] The world bores you when you are cool.