rogcat

...is a adb logcat wrapper. The Android Debugging Bridge (adb) is the default way to interact with a Android device during development. The logcat subcommand of adb allows access to Androids internal log buffers. rogcat tries to give access to those logs in a convenient way including post processing capabilities. The main feature probably is a painted and reformatted view. rogcat can read logs from

• running adb logcat (default)
• a custom command (stdout, stderr)
• one or multiple files
• stdin
• connect to TCP port
• A SocketCAN CAN device (Linux only)

The processing steps within a rogcat run include parsing of the input stream and applying filters (if provided). rogcat comes with a set of implemented in and output formats:

• csv: Comma separated values
• raw: Record (line) as captured
• html: A static single page html with a static table. This option cannot be used as input format. The page layout needs some love...
• human: A human friendly colored column based format. See screenshot
• json: Single line JSON

Except the human and html format the output of rogcat is parseable by rogcat.

Examples

The following examples show a subset of rogcat's features. Please read --help!

Live

Capture logs from a connected device and display unconditionally. Unless configurated otherwise, Rogcat runs adb logcat -b main -b events -b crash -b kernel:

rogcat

Write captured logs to testrun.log:

rogcat -o testrun.log

Write captured logs to file ./trace/testrun-XXX.log by starting a new file every 1000 lines. If ./trace is not present it is created:

rogcat -o ./trace/testrun.log -n 1000 or rogcat -o ./trace/testrun.log -n 1k

stdin

Process stdout and stderr of command:

rogcat command or command | rogcat -

Filter

Display logs from adb logcat and filter on records where the tag matches ^ABC.* along with not X and the message includes pattern:

rogcat -t "^ADB.*" -t \!X -m pattern

The Read all files matching trace* in alphanumerical order and dump lines matching hmmm to /tmp/filtered:

rogcat -i trace* -m hmmm -o /tmp/filtered

Check the --message and --highlight options in the helptext.

TCP

To connect via TCP to some host run something like:

rogcat tcp://traceserver:1234

SocketCAN

To open a SocketCAN device and read frames run:

rogcat can://can0

SocketCAN is a Linux only thing.

Bugreport

Capture a Android bugreport. This only works for Android version prior 7:

rogcat bugreport

Capture a Android bugreport and write (zipped) to bugreport.zip:

rogcat bugreport -z bugreport.zip

Log

Write message "some text" into the device log buffer (e.g annotations during manual testing):

rogcat log "some text"

Set level and tag or read from stdin:

rogcat-log
Add log message(s) log buffer

USAGE:
    rogcat log [OPTIONS] [MESSAGE]

FLAGS:
    -h, --help       Prints help information
    -V, --version    Prints version information

OPTIONS:
    -l, --level <LEVEL>    Log on level [values: trace, debug, info, warn, error, fatal, assert, T, D, I, W, E, F, A]
    -t, --tag <TAG>        Log tag

ARGS:
    <MESSAGE>    Log message. Pass "-" to capture from stdin'

Fuchsia

rogcat can be used to read logs from a Fuchsia device. Use the --fx switch to run ffx instead of adb logcat. The default ffx command is ffx log --no-color --severity debug.

Of course ffx can be invoked manually with eg. ffx log --no-color | rogcat - or rogcat "ffx log --no-color".

Installation

Building rogcat requires Rust 2018 edition:

cargo install --path .

or grab one of the binary releases on the GitHub page.

On Debian based systems the package libudev-dev (and it's dependencies) is required for building.

Configuration

When rogcat runs without any command supplied it defaults to running adb logcat -b all. The following options can be overwritten in the rogcat config file config.toml. The location of the config file is platform specific:

• MacOS: $HOME/Library/Preferences/rogcat/config.toml
• Linux: $HOME/.config/rogcat/config.toml
• Windows: %HOME%/AppData/Roaming/rogcat/config.toml

Restart

By default rogcat restarts adb logcat when that one exits. This is intentional behavior to make rogcat reconnect on device power cycles or disconnect/reconnects. A Windows 7 bug prevents rogcat from restarting adb. Place restart = false in the configuration file mentioned above to make rogcat exit when adb exits.

Buffer

The default behavior of rogcat is to dump all logcat buffers. This can be overwritten by selecting specific buffers in the rogcat configuration file. e.g:

buffer = ["main", "events"]

Terminal settings

Some parameters of the human format are adjustable via the config file:

terminal_bright_colors = false
terminal_color = never
terminal_hide_timestamp = true
terminal_process_width_max = 16
terminal_thread_width_max = 16
terminal_no_dimm = true
terminal_show_date = false
terminal_tag_width = 20

Profiles

Optionally rogcat reads a (toml formated) configuration file if present. This configuration may include tracing profiles ('-p') and settings. The possible options in the configuration file are a subset of the command line options. The configuration file is read from the location set in the environment variable ROGCAT_PROFILES or a fixed pathes depending on your OS:

• MacOS: $HOME/Library/Preferences/rogcat/profiles.toml
• Linux: $HOME/.config/rogcat/profiles.toml
• Windows: %HOME%/AppData/Roaming/rogcat/profiles.toml

The environment variable overrules the default path. See rogcat profiles --help or rogcat profiles --examples.

Example:

[profile.a]
comment = "Messages starting with A or a"
message_ignore_case = ["^A.*"]

[profile.B]
comment = "Messages starting with B"
message = ["^B.*"]

[profile.ABC]
extends = ["A", "B"]
comment = "Profiles A, B plus the following filter (^C.*)"
message = ["^C.*"]

[profile."Comments are optional"]
tag = ["rogcat"]

[profile.complex]
comment = "Profiles can be complex. This one is probably very useless."
highlight = ["blah"]
message = ["^R.*", "!^A.*", "!^A.*"]
tag = ["b*", "!adb"]

[profile."W hitespace"]
comment = "Profile names can contain whitespaces. Quote on command line..."

[profile.rogcat]
comment = "Only tag \"rogcat\""
tag = ["^rogcat$"]

[profile.default]
comment = "Default profile"

To check your setup, run rogcat profiles --list and select a profile for a run by passing the -p/--profile option.

You can create a special profile named default which will be used when no other profile is selected on the command line.

Usage

rogcat 0.4.3-alpha.0
Felix Obenhuber <felix@obenhuber.de>
A 'adb logcat' wrapper and log processor. Your config directory is "/Users/felix/Library/Preferences/rogcat".

USAGE:
    rogcat [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] [COMMAND] [SUBCOMMAND]

FLAGS:
    -d, --dump              Dump the log and then exit (don't block)
        --help              Prints help information
        --hide-timestamp    Hide timestamp in terminal output
        --no-dimm           Use white as dimm color
        --overwrite         Overwrite output file if present
        --restart           Restart command on exit
        --show-date         Show month and day in terminal output
    -s, --skip              Skip records on a command restart until the last received last record is received again. Use
                            with caution!
    -V, --version           Prints version information

OPTIONS:
    -b, --buffer <buffer>...
            Select specific logd buffers. Defaults to main, events, kernel and crash

        --color <color>                          Terminal coloring option [possible values: auto, always, never]
    -a, --filename-format <filename_format>
            Select a format for output file names. By passing 'single' the filename provided with the '-o' option is
            used (default).'enumerate' appends a file sequence number after the filename passed with '-o' option
            whenever a new file is created (see 'records-per-file' option). 'date' will prefix the output filename with
            the current local date when a new file is created [possible values: single, enumerate, date]
    -f, --format <format>
            Output format. Defaults to human on stdout and raw on file output [possible values: csv, html, human, json,
            raw]
    -H, --head <head>                            Read n records and exit
    -h, --highlight <highlight>...
            Highlight messages that match this pattern in RE2. The prefix '!' inverts the match

    -i, --input <input>...
            Read from file instead of command. Use 'serial://COM0@115200,8N1 or similiar for reading a serial port

    -l, --level <level>
            Minimum level [possible values: trace, debug, info, warn, error, fatal, assert, T, D, I, W, E, F, A]

    -m, --message <message>...                   Message filters in RE2. The prefix '!' inverts the match
    -M, --Message <message-ignore-case>...       Same as -m/--message but case insensitive
    -o, --output <output>                        Write output to file
    -p, --profile <profile>                      Select profile
    -P, --profiles-path <profiles_path>          Manually specify profile file (overrules ROGCAT_PROFILES)
    -n, --records-per-file <records_per_file>    Write n records per file. Use k, M, G suffixes or a plain number
    -r, --regex <regex_filter>...                Regex filter on tag, pid, thread and message.
    -t, --tag <tag>...                           Tag filters in RE2. The prefix '!' inverts the match
    -T, --Tag <tag-ignore-case>...               Same as -t/--tag but case insensitive
        --tail <tail>                            Dump only the most recent <COUNT> lines (implies --dump)

ARGS:
    <COMMAND>    Optional command to run and capture stdout and stdderr from. Pass "-" to d capture stdin'. If
                 omitted, rogcat will run "adb logcat -b all" and restarts this commmand if 'adb' terminates

SUBCOMMANDS:
    bugreport      Capture bugreport. This is only works for Android versions < 7.
    clear          Clear logd buffers
    completions    Generates completion scripts
    devices        List available devices
    help           Prints this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
    log            Add log message(s) log buffer

Licensing

See LICENSE for details.