# Reading logs

Reading logs can be kind of hard, though, there are some things which can help!

### First, lets look at what a log looks like, do note this log is using Logcat Colorizer, which is download-able below


You can see many things, let me break it down a little bit
- The Purple text on the left shows us exactly when something - for example an error - happened
- The colored squares to the right of that shows what kind of information it is, "E" for example is Error, "I" is Information, "D" is Debug, "W" is Warning and so on
- next to that - in teal/greenish blue - we see some random numbers that I have honestly no idea what they mean, maybe their PID?
- to the right of that we see the name of the program giving the Information, for example we can the first error in this screenshot is from "Perfsdkserver" and the warning at the bottom is from "Chimerautils"
- To the right of the Program Name, we can see whatever information the program wants us to see, for example "Non Chimera Object" next to that orange warning down there

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### For easier reading : There are tools like [logcatf](https://github.com/ujiro99/logcatf) <span style="font-size:12px;color:grey;">(Cross Platform - Works on Windows)</span> or [Logcat Colorizer](https://github.com/carlonluca/logcat-colorize) <span style="font-size:12px;color:grey;">(GNU/Linux and darwin/macOS)</span> which allow to color your Logcats to make them more read-able

You can use the tools above to see many different things a lot easier, like what is an error, a warning, and so on

#### You can filter logcats by different types <span style="font-size:12px;color:grey;">(also without Logcatf or Logcat-colorizer)</span> like this (In a Terminal or CMD/Powershell):

adb logcat *:E
# This filters to only errors

adb logcat *:W
# This filters only warnings

adb logcat *:E *:W
# This filters only warnings and errors

This can be useful to find a specific line, or a specific error, especially when many things are happening at once
To see a list of possible arguments and more information, check [the official documentation](https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/logcat)

:::spoiler Tip : Filtering by word
:::info
You can also filter by specific words on Linux and macOS by adding `|grep -i "your filtered word here"` at the end of the command! :)

on windows (Powershell), you can add `| Select-String "your words here"` at the end of your Command
::::