Spike

Introduction

Spike is a log file viewing & (if we’re being generous) analysis tool for Rails developers.

When developing a Rails application it is not unusual to end up poring over log files to understand why particular actions are, or are not, happening. Rails typically logs quite a lot of information and, in a production environment, there can be a lot of requests to wade through.

The aim of Spike is to make it easy to see all of your requests, narrow them down to only the most relevant, and examine the details of those requests. To do it quickly, and with a pleasant interface.

Screencast

I have made a 5 minute screencast that introduces the features of Spike.


Spike Demo Screencast from Matt Mower on Vimeo.

(Click through the title above to watch in HD – recommended)

Screenshot

Features

  • Optimized interface (read: not many features!)
  • Filter requests by controller, action, session, client, or Rails filter action (e.g. login_required)
  • Display summary of request details with drill-down to parameters, rendered templates, and raw log info
  • Remove specific controller:action combos (e.g. SessionController#heartbeat)
  • Native support for opening gzip’d logs
  • Document based, open multiple log files to compare
  • And that’s about it…

Notes

Spike has only been tested on a handful of log files at this point, especially log files from Rails version 2.2.2 and later. If Spike doesn’t work properly on your log file please get in touch.

Command line

To use Spike from the command line create a shell script called ‘spike’ with the following contents:

#/bin/sh
open -a /Applications/Spike.app $*

and put it somewhere in your path.

Download

Spike 1.0.9

Spike is a universal binary for Mac OS X 10.5

Support

If you have problems with Spike, or would like to suggest new features we have you covered.

Sources

Available on GitHub under MIT license

Acknowledgements