MegunoLink includes two logging visualizers that write serial data to a file:
- Log to file: all data received on the serial connection is written to the file,
- Message logger: data sent using message commands are written to the file.
The log to file visualizer is useful for capturing all of the data sent from your Arduino program for a complete record.
The message logger gives your Arduino program more control over what data is written to the log file by storing only the data sent using the message library. You’ll get a cleaner log containing only the data you want, uncluttered by other messages such as commands for plotting data. The message logger and message monitor visualizers use the same data format so you can both view and write message data to file from within MegunoLink. Use message channels with a message logger visualizer to support multiple, simultaneous log files containing different messages.
The message logger visualizer (left) writes content selected by your Arduino sketch to a file while the log to file visualizer (right) records all serial data to a file.
Both the message logger and log to file visualizers support:
- automatically locating your computers desktop, documents, Dropbox and MegunoLink project folders to create a log file path that is flexible for different computers,
- including the date and/or time in the log file name,
- adding date and/or time-stamps to each line of content written to the log file, and
- automatically starting logging when the connection to your device is opened.
Message logger visualizers also support controlling the log file name and starting or stopping logging from your Arduino sketch.
