How do I write to the console from a Laravel Controller?

Aha!

This can be done with the following PHP function:

error_log('Some message here.');

Found the answer here: Print something in PHP built-in web server

The question relates to serving via artisan and so Jrop's answer is ideal in that case. I.e, error_log logging to the apache log.

However, if your serving via a standard web server then simply use the Laravel specific logging functions:

\Log::info('This is some useful information.');\Log::warning('Something could be going wrong.');\Log::error('Something is really going wrong.');

Or with current version of Laravel, like this:

info('This is some useful information.');

This logs to Laravel's log file located at /laravel/storage/logs/laravel-<date>.log (laravel 5.0). Monitor the log - linux/osx: tail -f /laravel/storage/logs/laravel-<date>.log

• Laravel 5.0 http://laravel.com/docs/5.0/errors
• Laravel 4.2: http://laravel.com/docs/4.2/errors

I haven't tried this myself, but a quick dig through the library suggests you can do this:

$output = new Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput();$output->writeln("<info>my message</info>");

I couldn't find a shortcut for this, so you would probably want to create a facade to avoid duplication.