How to Log Messages to different Files

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Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.1 (the current stable version).

The Symfony Framework organizes log messages into channels. By default, there are several channels, including doctrine, event, security, request and more. The channel is printed in the log message and can also be used to direct different channels to different places/files.

By default, Symfony logs every message into a single file (regardless of the channel).

Note

Each channel corresponds to a logger service (monolog.logger.XXX) in the container (use the debug:container command to see a full list) and those are injected into different services.

Switching a Channel to a different Handler

Now, suppose you want to log the security channel to a different file. To do this, just create a new handler and configure it to log only messages from the security channel. You might add this in config.yml to log in all environments, or just config_prod.yml to happen only in prod:

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        # app/config/config.yml
monolog:
    handlers:
        security:
            # log all messages (since debug is the lowest level)
            level:    debug
            type:     stream
            path:     '%kernel.logs_dir%/security.log'
            channels: [security]

        # an example of *not* logging security channel messages for this handler
        main:
            # ...
            # channels: ['!security']
    

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        <!-- app/config/config.xml -->
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:monolog="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/monolog"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/monolog
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/monolog/monolog-1.0.xsd">

    <monolog:config>
        <monolog:handler name="security" type="stream" path="%kernel.logs_dir%/security.log">
            <monolog:channels>
                <monolog:channel>security</monolog:channel>
            </monolog:channels>
        </monolog:handler>

        <monolog:handler name="main" type="stream" path="%kernel.logs_dir%/main.log">
            <!-- ... -->
            <monolog:channels>
                <monolog:channel>!security</monolog:channel>
            </monolog:channels>
        </monolog:handler>
    </monolog:config>
</container>
    

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        // app/config/config.php
$container->loadFromExtension('monolog', array(
    'handlers' => array(
        'security' => array(
            'type'     => 'stream',
            'path'     => '%kernel.logs_dir%/security.log',
            'channels' => array(
                'security',
            ),
        ),
        'main'     => array(
            // ...
            'channels' => array(
                '!security',
            ),
        ),
    ),
));
    

Caution

The channels configuration only works for top level handlers. Handlers that are nested inside a group, buffer, filter, fingers crossed or other such handler will ignore this configuration and will process every message passed to them.

YAML Specification

You can specify the configuration by many forms:

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        channels: ~    # Include all the channels

channels: foo  # Include only channel 'foo'
channels: '!foo' # Include all channels, except 'foo'

channels: [foo, bar]   # Include only channels 'foo' and 'bar'
channels: ['!foo', '!bar'] # Include all channels, except 'foo' and 'bar'
    

Creating your own Channel

You can change the channel monolog logs to one service at a time. This is done either via the configuration below or by tagging your service with monolog.logger and specifying which channel the service should log to. With the tag, the logger that is injected into that service is preconfigured to use the channel you've specified.

Configure Additional Channels without Tagged Services

With MonologBundle 2.4 you can configure additional channels without the need to tag your services:

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        # app/config/config.yml
monolog:
    channels: ['foo', 'bar']
    

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        <!-- app/config/config.xml -->
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:monolog="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/monolog"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/monolog
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/monolog/monolog-1.0.xsd">

    <monolog:config>
        <monolog:channel>foo</monolog:channel>
        <monolog:channel>bar</monolog:channel>
    </monolog:config>
</container>
    

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        // app/config/config.php
$container->loadFromExtension('monolog', array(
    'channels' => array(
        'foo',
        'bar',
    ),
));
    

With this, you can now send log messages to the foo channel by using the automatically registered logger service monolog.logger.foo.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.

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