Add format for logs/warnings/error messages which allows word-wrapping and preserves newlines

Question

At the moment, we have these choices when providing error messages / logs:

1. Use code-blocks

   This preserves the formatting of the error message, though it uses spurious highlighting and disables line-wrapping (both the latter are seldom appropriate)

2. Use code-blocks with <!-- language: none -->

   Same as #1, but at least no inappropriate highlighting.

3. Use <pre>...</pre>

   Same as #2, but html works and thus must be escaped.

4. Use quote-marks

   Markdown and HTML work and must be escaped, no fixed-width font and whitespace-collapsing, but at least line-wrapping works

5. Insert as normal text

   None of the advantages of either previous option and all the drawbacks, though still popular with new users who do not know better or cannot be bothered.

None of those is really good for logs/errors which easily get just too wide.

What I propose is introducing an alternative, which is especially appropriate for logs and error-messages:

Add something like <!-- language: log --> which makes code-blocks use no highlighting and word-wrap their lines to avoid horizontal scrolling.

This SO question shows which style would have to be applied to code-blocks marked as log: How do I wrap text in a pre tag?

Answer 1

As a workaround for single-line errors, you can use inline code formatting, for example:

Could not create file. Directory structure too deep: com/enterprise/disruptive/deep/learning/data/science/holistic/fizz/buzz/synergic/framework/manager

It's ugly, but at least you can read the whole thing without scrolling.

---

The reason I say single line only is that newlines get removed as well as whitespace at the start of a line, for example, look at this Python traceback:

Block:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name 'foo' from 'gi' (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py)

Inline:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> ImportError: cannot import name 'foo' from 'gi' (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py)

You'd have to manually add the newlines (<br/> or equivalent) and wrap each line with inline code formatting, which is a pain.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name 'foo' from 'gi' (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py)

Even then, it's hard to tell where a wrapped line ends and the next line begins since there's only a tiny little space at the start of a <code> block thanks to SE's CSS (basically code { padding-left: 4px; }).

Or you could double the newlines, but it's even uglier:

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>

ImportError: cannot import name 'foo' from 'gi' (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py)

Or you could use list formatting:

1. Traceback (most recent call last):
2. File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
3. ImportError: cannot import name 'foo' from 'gi' (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py)

Answer 2

This would not work in all cases.

In some cases using code blocks works, but in others it's better to blockquote, so why do we need a specific option for this when we can either use code blocks with <!-- language: none --> or blockquotes as appropriate? Admittedly this doesn't solve your word wrap issue, but does solve the highlighting.

The other thing to consider that a raw dump of the log might not be the most appropriate thing to include in the question anyway. It would probably be better if only the key parts were included - like the last 5 lines, or extraneous information was edited out. If this were done the formatting issues may well disappear.

Answer 3

You already have the option of wrapping the log lines in <pre></pre> tags which will then show like a console output, but without any formatting.

Also, you won't need to use four space indents

    127.0.0.1 - [21/Dec/2012:13:55:36 -0900] "GET /clock.svg HTTP/1.0" 200 1513 

And just have the following:

<pre>
127.0.0.1 - [21/Dec/2012:13:55:36 -0900] "GET /clock.svg HTTP/1.0" 200 1513 
</pre>