How to read system log file in Android?

Question

I am trying to read system logs in my code to generate something like an error report. Similar to adb logcat, but in a programming way.

How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

Log Collector has their source code available on Google Code. They actually just call logcat. See here: android-log-collector - SendLogActivity.java

Here is the key part:

ArrayList<String> commandLine = new ArrayList<String>();
commandLine.add("logcat");//$NON-NLS-1$
commandLine.add("-d");//$NON-NLS-1$
ArrayList<String> arguments = ((params != null) && (params.length > 0)) ? params[0] : null;

if (null != arguments){
    commandLine.addAll(arguments);
}

Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(commandLine.toArray(new String[0]));
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));

String line;
while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null){ 
     log.append(line);
     log.append(App.LINE_SEPARATOR); 
}