When a rules matches, an action is taken. There are currently four supported actions:
line
match
blank
suppress
line
Action
The line
action instructs Clog to color the entire line.
This makes the whole line more visible. An example might be to color a line
in a log file if that line reports a critical error.
match
Action
The match
action instructs clog to only color the matching
pattern and not the entire line. This make individual keywords more visible.
An example might be to highlight simply an error code, or server name.
blank
Action
The blank
action causes a blank line to be written both before
and after the matching line. This is another form of emphasis.
suppress
Action
The suppress
action causes the whole line to be removed from
the output. You will not see a suppressed line at all. This is useful for
stripping out noise from a log file.
Here is a default rule set that includes all the different actions. The first rule will make any line completely blue if it contains the word 'blue'. The second rule colors the word 'red' red. The third puts blank lines around any line containing the word 'emphasize'. The fourth rule suppresses any line containing the word 'ignore'.
Here is a sample file that triggers every rule, so we shoud see the actions of all rules taken. Can you predict what will happen?
Here is the output:
This shows rules precedence also - the second rule finds the word 'red' in the blue line.