Time stamped logs for bash scripts

[mjhaas]

I've been working on a way to log various administrative scripts in the way that I want and after much head scratching I've hit on a way to do it using named pipes. As I didn't google any similar solutions I thought I'd post my code here in case anyone else wants it.

#!/bin/bash
#
# Functions to log scripts to to a file. Inputs, standard output and standard
# error are all logged with a time stamp prefix. File descriptors 4 and 5 are
# used to save standard output and standard error.
#
# Usage
#
# . logging.sh
#
# start_logging logfile "%F %T : "
#
# Script goes here
# ..
#
# stop_logging
#

function start_logging {

# Parameters
#
# ${1} : Log File
# ${2} : Prefix in strftime format

echo Starting Logging >&2

TEMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)

local PIPE=${TEMPDIR}/pipe
mkfifo -m 600 ${PIPE}

perl -e "
use POSIX qw(strftime);
while (<STDIN>) {
print(strftime('${2}', localtime(time)), \$_);
}" < ${PIPE} > ${1} &

exec 4>&1 5>&2 1>${PIPE} 2>&1

set -v

echo Logging Started >&2
}

function stop_logging {

echo Stopping Logging >&2

set +v

exec 1>&4 2>&5 4>&- 5>&-

rm -rf ${TEMPDIR}

echo Logging Stopped >&2
}

Now to get the stop_logging function to mail the log to an admin ..