So, in bash shell script use
#!/bin/bash . logger.sh info starting .... info finished #ENDwhere logger.sh is somewhere in your path and has the content
#!/bin/bash # logger.sh # # info, warning, error and fatal functions to display timestamped # messages to stderr. Use the infof, warningf, errorf and fatalf # functions to format the message using printf. A newline is # automatically added and should not be included in your printf # format string. function info { log INFO $* } function infof { logf INFO $* } function warning { log WARNING $* } function warningf { logf WARNING $* } function error { log ERROR $* } function errorf { logf ERROR $* } function fatal { log FATAL $* exit 1; } function fatalf { logf FATAL $* exit 1; } function log { echo $(date +'%F %T') $* 1>&2 } function logf { level=$1 format=$2 shift 2 printf "$(date +'%F %T') $level $format\n" $* 1>&2 } # ENDMost other languages have extensive logging support.
Hardly seems worth posting such an obvious piece of advice, but look around into your scripts -- as I did mine -- and notice how few provide this data.