Tips ==== - Logging_ is a fantastic way to monitor the bot's progress as it runs. It has a slew of built-in loggers, and enabling log retention (so logs are saved to :file:`logs/` in the working directory) is highly recommended. In the normal setup, there are three log files, each of which "rotate" at a specific time (:file:`filename.log` becomes :file:`filename.log.2012-04-10`, for example). The :file:`debug.log` file rotates every hour, and maintains six hours of logs of every level (``DEBUG`` and up). :file:`bot.log` rotates every day at midnight, and maintains seven days of non-debug logs (``INFO`` and up). Finally, :file:`error.log` rotates every Sunday night, and maintains four weeks of logs indicating unexpected events (``WARNING`` and up). To use logging in your commands or tasks (recommended), :py:class:~earwigbot.commands.BaseCommand` and :py:class:~earwigbot.tasks.BaseTask` provide :py:attr:`logger` attributes configured for the specific command or task. If you're working with other classes, :py:attr:`bot.logger` is the root logger (:py:obj:`logging.getLogger("earwigbot")` by default), so you can use :py:func:`~logging.Logger.getChild` to make your logger. For example, task loggers are essentially :py:attr:`bot.logger.getChild("tasks").getChild(task.name) `. - A very useful IRC command is "``!reload``", which reloads all commands and tasks without restarting the bot. [1]_ Combined with using the `!git plugin`_ for pulling repositories from IRC, this can provide a seamless command/task development workflow if the bot runs on an external server and you set up its working directory as a git repo. - You can run a task by itself instead of the entire bot with :command:`earwigbot path/to/working/dir --task task_name`. - Questions, comments, or suggestions about the documentation? `Let me know`_, or `create an issue`_ so I can improve it for other people. .. rubric:: Footnotes .. [1] In reality, all this does is call :py:meth:`bot.commands.load() ` and :py:meth:`bot.tasks.load() `! .. _logging: http://docs.python.org/library/logging.html .. _!git plugin: https://github.com/earwig/earwigbot-plugins/blob/develop/commands/git.py .. _Let me know: ben.kurtovic@verizon.net .. _create an issue: https://github.com/earwig/earwigbot/issues