How to print out the method name and line number and conditionally disable NSLog?

Here are some useful macros around NSLog I use a lot:

#ifdef DEBUG
#   define DLog(fmt, ...) NSLog((@"%s [Line %d] " fmt), __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __LINE__, ##__VA_ARGS__)
#else
#   define DLog(...)
#endif

// ALog always displays output regardless of the DEBUG setting
#define ALog(fmt, ...) NSLog((@"%s [Line %d] " fmt), __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __LINE__, ##__VA_ARGS__)

The DLog macro is used to only output when the DEBUG variable is set (-DDEBUG in the projects's C flags for the debug confirguration).

ALog will always output text (like the regular NSLog).

The output (e.g. ALog(@"Hello world") ) will look like this:

-[LibraryController awakeFromNib] [Line 364] Hello world

NSLog(@"%s %d %s %s", __FILE__, __LINE__, __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __FUNCTION__);

Outputs file name, line number, and function name:

/proj/cocoa/cdcli/cdcli.m 121 managedObjectContext managedObjectContext

__FUNCTION__ in C++ shows mangled name __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ shows nice function name, in cocoa they look the same.

I'm not sure what is the proper way of disabling NSLog, I did:

#define NSLog

And no logging output showed up, however I don't know if this has any side effects.

My answer to this question might help, looks like it's similar to the one Diederik cooked up. You may also want to replace the call to NSLog() with a static instance of your own custom logging class, that way you can add a priority flag for debug/warning/error messages, send messages to a file or database as well as the console, or pretty much whatever else you can think of.

#define DEBUG_MODE

#ifdef DEBUG_MODE
    #define DebugLog( s, ... ) NSLog( @"<%p %@:(%d)> %@", self, 
              [[NSString stringWithUTF8String:__FILE__] lastPathComponent], 
              __LINE__, 
              [NSString stringWithFormat:(s), 
              ##__VA_ARGS__] )
#else
    #define DebugLog( s, ... ) 
#endif

Disabling all NSLogs, for somebody allergic to MACROS, here is something that you can compile too:

void SJLog(NSString *format,...)
{
    if(LOG)
    {   
        va_list args;
        va_start(args,format);
        NSLogv(format, args);
        va_end(args);
    }
}

And, use it almost like NSLog:

SJLog(@"bye bye NSLogs !");

From this blog: https://whackylabs.com/logging/ios/2011/01/19/ios-moving-in-and-out-of-nslogs/

To complement the answers above, it can be quite useful to use a replacement for NSLog in certain situations, especially when debugging. For example, getting rid of all the date and process name/id information on each line can make output more readable and faster to boot.

The following link provides quite a bit of useful ammo for making simple logging much nicer.

http://cocoaheads.byu.edu/wiki/a-different-nslog