Logging in alt:V

This article will explain the usage of logging in alt:V.
It will explain the concept of logging, the different types of logging and how to use logging in alt:V.

What is logging used for

As a programmer, logging is very important for debugging and showing information.
By logging to the console, you can check the values of variables etc. at runtime to find your bug or optimize your code.

Important things to know about logging

Don't use logging in production too much, because it can lag the console and will also hide the important logs you have placed.
It is best to completely disable logging on the client in the production, and setting logging to the bare minimum (e.g. only errors) on the server.
Also don't put any sensitive information into your logs, the logs get saved to a file in plain text, so logging e.g. a password to the console is a big security risk.

When and how to use logging

There are different types of logging, which should be used for different kinds of logs.
You can see a table of the different types of logs here:

Type	Usage
Infos	To display general information about something
Warnings	To display something maybe being wrong, but not being very important
Errors	To display something going very wrong, which needs immediate action

Using colors in logs

If you want to make your log messages look better, you can use different color codes to highlight important parts of the message. Or to group/categorize your logs better.
The color codes can be used by appending a color code, like this for example: ~r~, before your part of the text that should have that color.
You can see a list of all color codes in the table below:

Color code	Screenshot
~k~
~r~
~g~
~b~
~y~
~m~
~c~
~w~
~lk~
~lr~
~lg~
~lb~
~ly~
~lm~
~lc~
~lw~

Using logs in your code

Here you can find small examples in the different programming languages alt:V offers on how to use logging:

• Javascript
• C#

alt.log("~r~Hello ~g~World!");
alt.logWarning("This is a warning");
alt.logError("This is an error");