Logs

The main concept of worklog is to have every log entry available in a simple text file which is formatted as a CSV file with pipes being used as the separator chars.

A typical file looks like this

2020-09-07 21:55:33+02:00|2020-09-07 21:55:33+02:00|session|start|
2020-09-07 22:09:36+02:00|2020-09-07 22:09:36+02:00|task|start|task1
2020-09-07 22:14:41+02:00|2020-09-07 22:14:41+02:00|task|stop|task1
2020-09-07 22:16:40+02:00|2020-09-07 22:16:40+02:00|session|stop|

The first column is the date at which the entry has been created. The second column is the event date, which means the date when the event has happened. If --offset-minute or --time flags have been used to create an entry the second column differs from the first column, otherwise they are the same.

The file is an append-only log, so row entries appear as the user has logged them. This might result in out-of-order entries if a different date has been set for the event date.

Warning

Although it is possible, we recommend users to not edit this file manually but only change it through the worklog util.

To make it easier to see the sorted logs the following command can be used:

$ wl log

which will show the last 10 records by default. The --number flag can be used to change the number of rows that should be printed. To see the full log the --all flag can be used. By default the system’s pager is used if more than 10 entries are requested. To force output to stdout the --no-pager flag can be set.

Sometimes it is useful to only show the logs for sessions or tasks. The --category flag can be used to limit the output to either sessions or tasks.

$ wl log --category session    # will only show sessions
$ wl log --category task       # will only show tasks