6 replies to this topic

[EddieV223]

Hi I have a game I am working on, it has a logger class.  This class stores a string stream, and then dumps it to a text file when the application closes.

 

What I want to be able to do is have it open in some kind of text editor and have it reload automatically whenever the program changes the log file.  

 

However if I try to use visual studio it always prompts that the file has changed would you like to reload it, this gets very annoying after hours of programming.  I tried notepad, but it doesn't even know when the file changes and so you have to close it and reopen it again every time.  I tried word pad, it grabs control of the file and doesn't let my application modify it.  Libre office does the same thing.  

 

So what text editor can I use that will not block the file from changing but also automatically update when the file contents change?

Edited by EddieV223, 02 March 2013 - 02:40 PM.

[EWClay]

I don't know a text editor that does this but what about writing to debug output as well as the text file? If you have a logger class it should be easy. You can see the output in Visual Studio or DebugView if you are not debugging.

[swiftcoder]

Pretty much any decent text editor should do this. Off the top of my head, Sublime does so.

 

If you are running a unix-like environment, the relevant command line tool would be tail -f <file name>.

[akesterson]

I second the "tail -f" solution. This works on windows (just install mingw, or cygwin, or gnuwin32, or any of the host of other things that can give you tail), mac os x, and all unix variants.

If youre on windows and use powershell, look into get-content, I understand it can help with this.

[Servant of the Lord]

Programmers Notepad 2 does this, iirc.

 

It doesn't constantly check, but anytime you focus on Programmer's Notepad (say, unminimizing it or bringing it to the front, or mouse-clicking it), it'll check if the file has changed and ask if you want to reload it.

[KulSeran]

Write out HTML compatible logs. Gives you the ability to do some nice coloring and other formatting when you output data. Shove a refresh meta tag in there and the browser will keep reloading the log page every X seconds.

[ifthen]

I personally use PSPad. Its behaviour in these situations is similar to Programmer's Notepad mentioned by Servant of the Lord.