Logging in OpenSCAD

Our first program will demonstrate logging in OpenSCAD. Here’s the full source code and explanation:

// OpenSCAD doesn't have built-in logging functions like Go,
// but we can create a simple logging system using echo().

// Simple logging function
function log(message) = echo(str("LOG: ", message));

// Info logging function
function info(message) = echo(str("INFO: ", message));

// Error logging function
function error(message) = echo(str("ERROR: ", message));

// Using the logging functions
log("This is a standard log message");
info("This is an informational message");
error("This is an error message");

// Creating a simple 3D object to demonstrate
cube([10, 10, 10]);

In OpenSCAD, we don’t have a dedicated logging package like in some other languages. However, we can create a simple logging system using the echo() function.

The echo() function in OpenSCAD is used to print messages to the console. We’ve created three logging functions: log(), info(), and error(). Each of these functions takes a message as an input and uses echo() to print it with an appropriate prefix.

To use these logging functions, we simply call them with a string message:

log("This is a standard log message");
info("This is an informational message");
error("This is an error message");

These will print messages to the console when the script is run.

It’s important to note that in OpenSCAD, these logging messages will appear in the console output, not in the 3D view. The cube([10, 10, 10]); line at the end of the script is there to create a simple 3D object, ensuring that something appears in the 3D view when the script is run.

To run this program, you would typically save it as a .scad file (e.g., logging.scad) and then open it with the OpenSCAD application. The logging messages will appear in the console output window of the OpenSCAD interface.

Sample output in the OpenSCAD console might look like this:

LOG: This is a standard log message
INFO: This is an informational message
ERROR: This is an error message

Remember that OpenSCAD is primarily a 3D modeling scripting language, so it doesn’t have many of the features of general-purpose programming languages. This logging system is a simple approximation of logging functionality to help with debugging and information output in OpenSCAD scripts.