It can be helpful to add logging to understand what's going on with storytests, and especially when something does not seem right.

In this tutorial we show how to add logging at the storytest and at the fixturing/code level. We start with the storytest level.
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!1 1. In Storytests
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Several techniques can be used at the storytest level without further support at the fixturing/code level.
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----!2 1.1 Show with actions
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Use the '''show''' special action to display the value of an action directly in the report.

For example, the action in the second table below results in "My result". This is displayed at the end of the row:

!|fitlibrary.specify.log.LogExample|

|'''show'''|''some action''|

Here the output of the action contains HTML ("<u>text</u>"), so it is rendered by the browser:

|'''show'''|''some action with html''|

This can be convenient if you want to organise the data or highlight it in some way. For example, tabular data may be displayed in an HTML table.

However, if you want to see the literal form, use '''show escaped''':

|'''show escaped'''|''some action with html''|
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----!2 1.2 Show with dynamic variables
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We can show the value of a dynamic variable as well. Eg:

|'''set'''|colour|''to''|red|

|'''show'''|''get''|roses are @{colour}|

|''get''|roses are @{colour}|'''is'''|roses are red|
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----!2 1.3 Show After
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This approach is convenient when you don't expect to look at the logged result very often, or it's long, so you don't want it visually cluttering up the report.

'''show after''' includes the result of the action in a folding area after the table.

|'''show after'''|some action|
|'''show after'''|''some action with html''|

To simply include some text, use the ''get'' action, which just returns that text supplied to it:

|'''show after'''|''get''|Some text|
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----!2 1.4 Show After As
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If there's lot of information, or different categories of information, it may be worth segmenting the '''show after''' logs into different folding areas.

'''show after as''' includes name of the folding area as the first argument and provided the result of the action (such as ''some action'' below) in a named folding area after the table.

|'''show after as'''|Other Log|some action|
|'''show after as'''|Further Log|''some action with html''|
|'''show after as'''|Other Log|''some action with html''|

To simply include some text, use:

|'''show after as'''|Other Log|''get''|Some text|
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----!2 1.5 Log Text
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If you want timing information included, or want to also log to a file (or elsewhere), this is a useful approach.

'''logged''' logs the result of the action (such as ''some action'' below) in a folding area after the table. See later in this tutorial (2 pages on) for how to have this also logged to a file (or elsewhere).

|'''logged'''|some action|
|'''logged'''|''some action with html''|
|'''logged'''|''some action with html''|

You can also put '''logged''' at the end of the row:

|some action|'''logged'''|

To simply include some text, use:

|'''logged'''|''get''|Some text|

or

|''log text''|Some text|
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----!2 Next
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On the [[next page of this tutorial][^FixtureLogging]] we show how to handle logging from the fixture/code level.