Allow configuring (vs just toggling) v1's output line prefix

Description

It seems that the output prefix should be a bit more flexible than it currently is. The current format is:

[hoststring] Message

This should be flexible, meaning both format as well as the ability to turn it off, or make it print one line per host/task combo. (That particular aspect has been spun off into #281.)

An ideal situation would be to use python’s built-in template strings. (or to be very forward thinking format strings, but those require 2.6). The template can be put in evn.output.prefix or similar. Using the templates it is easy to just define output format based on exposed variables.

These could include:

• hostname
• hoststring
• comand output signifier [1][2]
• time [1]
• other stuff

It could also include color code formatting.

[1] some variables will need to have a helper variable, e.g. strftime format for time [2] output signifier could be something simple like a ** making the output something like:

[hostname] Log msg
[hostname] ** output from cmd

An example format string (with helpers) could look like:

env.output.prefix = "[${hostname} - ${time}] ${cmd_sig}"
env.output.timeformat = "H:M"
env.output.cmd_sig = "**"

resulting in:

[www1.foo.com - 17:05] Executing hostname
[www1.foo.com - 17:05] ** www1.foo.com

---

Originally submitted by Erich Heine (sophacles) on 2010-05-14 at 05:56pm EDT

Attachments

• fabric.patch

Relations

• Related to #164: puts show_prefix
• Related to #281: Make line prefix optional
• Related to #57: Support full logging to file
• Related to #7: Improved prompt detection and passthrough

[humitos]

It would be good to have the ability to turn the prefix off also. For example, I’m using this task to connect to a remote Django shell and try many things on the server directly:

def shell_plus():
    with cd(env.project):
        with virtualenv(env.venv):
            run("./manage.py shell")

Right now, I have a lot of prefix information that I don’t need and it’s just noise.

[bitprophet]

On second thought, just make it more obvious that this would be a nice small feature add for the 1.x line.