Idle Time

asllog.tgz

asllog is a command-line utility for logging messages with ASL. Its usage is very simple:

asllog key=value

It also provides a --to-file=filename switch, which you can use zero or more times to add files (using asl_add_log_file) for the message to be mirrored to.

aslsearch.tgz

aslsearch is a command-line utiliy for searching the ASL log or database. Its usage is similarly simple:

aslsearch expression …

Each expression is comprised of a key, an operator, and a value. The operators are:

==

ASL_QUERY_OP_EQUAL

<

ASL_QUERY_OP_LESS

<=

ASL_QUERY_OP_LESS_EQUAL

>

ASL_QUERY_OP_GREATER

>=

ASL_QUERY_OP_GREATER_EQUAL

!=

ASL_QUERY_OP_NOT_EQUAL

<>

ASL_QUERY_OP_NOT_EQUAL

?

ASL_QUERY_OP_TRUE

Note that, whereas asllog uses one equals sign (assignment), aslsearch uses two (equality-testing). Note also that in the last case, the ? operator, no value is needed—“key?” is sufficient.

So, for example, to search for all NSLog messages sent by Xcode:

aslsearch Sender==Xcode 'CFLog Local Time?'

ASLReader.tgz

Finally, ASLReader is an application that polls the log (once per second) and posts a Growl notification for every new message that it finds. This serves as an effective demonstration not only of polling the log, but also of the minimal code needed to post Growl notifications. You may find the code for this application useful to adapt to other purposes.