I use them in debug code to define a basic class with a macro to all the log

As such:

—–MyLog.h
// some loglevels — your labels would vary
#define MTLogAlways 0
#define MTLogUpdates 1
#define MTLogLibraryUpdates 2
#define MTLogSearches 4

@interface MyLog : NSObject
{
}
+(void)logWithOptions:(int)options file:(char*)sourceFile function:(char*)functionName lineNumber:(int)lineNumber format:(NSString*)format, …;

#define MyLog(opts,s,…) [MyLog logWithOptions:opts file:__FILE__ function: (char *)__FUNCTION__ lineNumber:__LINE__ format:(s),##__VA_ARGS__]
@end
—– MyLog.m
static int __MyLogLevel;

@implementation MyLog
+(void)initialize
{
__MyLogLevel= [[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:@”logLevel”] intValue];
// you can store logLevel as a hidden preference — this would be a bitwise and to add logging for different parts of your code.

}
+(void)logWithOptions:(int)options file:(char*)sourceFile function:(char*)functionName lineNumber:(int)lineNumber
format:(NSString*)format, …{

if(options == 0 || __MyLogLevel & options ){
NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
va_list ap;
NSString *print,*file, *function;
va_start(ap,format);
file=[[NSString alloc] initWithBytes:sourceFile
length:strlen(sourceFile)
encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
function = [NSString stringWithCString:functionName];
print=[[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:format arguments:ap];
va_end(ap);
NSLog(@”%@:%d; %@”,function,lineNumber ,print);
[print release];
[file release];

[pool release];

}
return;
}

@end

—–

now to log in code

MyLog(MTLogAlways,@”Hello %@”,aString);

would output
x.x.x.x myapp[1234] -[myClass mytestmethod]:5; Hello world
assuming aString was @”world”

whereas
MyLog(MTLogUpdates,@”Hello world”);
would only log if the first bit of the logLevel pref is on. (ie logLevel & 1 = 1)

Note that I am cleaning this up from my code — it may not be working 100% but you should get the idea…

Google for ‘textmate objective-c screencast’. I think it might make the difference.

Scott’s entries about TextMate made me give it a sincere trial. Never looked back since.

I wasn’t until I realized most Mac programmers didn’t even know what it did.

You are quite the TextMate pusher lately. I’ll have to download it and give it a try.

TextMate’s ‘log’ tab trigger fills this in automatically for you.