Or (2), logging is filtered on what strings are contained in the log message. That is, log statements are written in the normal way by the programmer but is filtered by some mechanism where the log message is matched against certain keywords, like the grep command.
Wow. That's novelty. You propose first format the message. Do all this hard work and then start costly substring searching? No, I wouldn't go this direction.
In fact, that's quite neat. In fact, Easy LogView (a program that I wrote) allows for this. In other words, log as much as possible into a log, then have an external tool that allows you to filter exactly what you need. I like the idea and I've used the program quite a few times. Best, John -- John Torjo, Contributing editor, C/C++ Users Journal -- "Win32 GUI Generics" -- generics & GUI do mix, after all -- http://www.torjo.com/win32gui/surfaces.html - Sky's the limit! -- http://www.torjo.com/cb/ - Click, Build, Run!