How do I write a message timestamp to a log file? - c++

Question

I'm trying to create a logging file for my C++ program. My goal is to put two timestamps at two points of my program and print in a file the CPU time period between these two points. I'm doing this because I want to know which parts of my code are the most time consuming so I can make improvements (so there may be several chunks of code I want to measure). So far, I've made a function that, when called, prints a string that I pass as an argument, to a file:
#define LOGFILE "myprog.log"
void Log (std::string message){
std::ofstream ofs;
ofs.open(LOGFILE, std::ofstream::out | std::ios::app);
ofs << message << std::endl;
ofs.close();
}
However, I'm having difficulty figuring out how to print the CPU timestamp. Firstly, I don't know what time measurement format I should use (should I use the chrono or the time_t types?) I'm trying to print a time period so it would be helpful if there was a type for duration (I've tried chrono::duration but it seems to require C++11 support). Secondly, given I know what type to use, how do I print it to the file? Is there a way to cast that type to a string? Or can I pass it directly to my function and print it somehow?
This has troubled me a lot the last couple of days and I can't seem to figure it out, so any input would be really helpful. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Get a CPU Timestamp
You'll want to use std::chrono::system_clock to get this timestamp. Do not use std::chrono::steady_clock or std::chrono::high_resolution_clock, as those are for making high-precision timing measurements, and do not guarantee fidelity or accuracy to wall-clock time.
auto now = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
//now is a time_point object describing the instant it was recorded according to your system clock
Print this CPU Timestamp in a readable format
In C++20, this is pretty trivial.
std::string formatted_time = std::format("{0:%F_%T}", now);
ofs << formatted_time << ": " << message << std::endl;
%F is a substitute for %Y-%m-%D, which will output year-month-day in ISO format, i.e. 2018-10-09.
%T is the same for %H:%M:%S, which will output a time, i.e. 17:55:34.786
See the specification for std::format and std::formatter for more information about how to specify these parameters.
As of December 2020, no major compilers support the <format> library, yet, so as an alternative you can use fmt, which is a standalone implementation of the library.
Prior to C++20
Consider Howard Hinnant's date library, most of which is being incorporated into C++20 as a new part of the chrono library. The format function found in that library uses the same syntax as suggested above for the C++20 version, although without integration with std::format.

Answer 2

I'm usually use my implementation for such things.
#include <chrono>
#include <ctime>
// strftime format
#define LOGGER_PRETTY_TIME_FORMAT "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
// printf format
#define LOGGER_PRETTY_MS_FORMAT ".%03d"
// convert current time to milliseconds since unix epoch
template <typename T>
static int to_ms(const std::chrono::time_point<T>& tp)
{
using namespace std::chrono;
auto dur = tp.time_since_epoch();
return static_cast<int>(duration_cast<milliseconds>(dur).count());
}
// format it in two parts: main part with date and time and part with milliseconds
static std::string pretty_time()
{
auto tp = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
std::time_t current_time = std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_t(tp);
// this function use static global pointer. so it is not thread safe solution
std::tm* time_info = std::localtime(&current_time);
char buffer[128];
int string_size = strftime(
buffer, sizeof(buffer),
LOGGER_PRETTY_TIME_FORMAT,
time_info
);
int ms = to_ms(tp) % 1000;
string_size += std::snprintf(
buffer + string_size, sizeof(buffer) - string_size,
LOGGER_PRETTY_MS_FORMAT, ms
);
return std::string(buffer, buffer + string_size);
}
It returns current time in format: 2018-09-23 21:58:52.642.
Yes it requires --std=c++11 or above.

Answer 3

For the record:
If C++20 features are not available, as in my case, you can use the following:
#include <ctime>
#include <iomanip>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std ;
time_t now = time(nullptr) ;
cout << put_time(localtime(&now), "%T") << endl ;
put_time is defined in iomanip library, look at https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/manip/put_time, and time_t and localtime are from the ctime, https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/chrono/c/ctime

Answer 4

If you want a more manual approach, this is what I've used before
char buffer[MAX_BUFFER_SIZE];
time_t t = time(NULL);
struct tm *lt = localtime(&t);
snprintf(buffer, MAX_BUFFER_SIZE, "%02d/%02d/%02d %02d:%02d:%02d", lt->tm_mon+1, lt->tm_mday, lt->tm_year%100, lt->tm_hour, lt->tm_min, lt->tm_sec);
Then just output buffer, which now contains string representation of time, to your file.