Write log from Jenkinsfile

Question

When creating Jenkins pipelines or libraries which should be used in a pipeline it's often hard to debug code with the logging options provided. At the moment I'm logging with this:

node {
  ...
  sh "echo ${thingtoshow}"
}

The downside is that this it's not very powerful when it comes to Groovy/Java specific details - e.g. it wouldn't allow me to dump the contents of objects right away

It creates a mess in the actual logs:

[Pipeline] sh
[workspace] Running shell script
+ echo 'things'
things

So how could I write logs to just get a single line of log output within the Jenkins console?

---

Edit: Even though the code example doesn't show it, but this is particularly useful when developing shared Groovy libraries for Jenkins pipelines

Answer 1

You could use the echo stage:

node {
  echo "qwerty"
}

It results in two lines:

[Pipeline] echo
qwerty

Unfortunately it generates two lines, but as far as i know that is the shortest form.