Proper way to log progress and resume in Python

Question

I often have a need to log my progress when doing a repetitive task. Logging allows me to continue where I left off if execution is halted (for example, perhaps my VPS server was rebooted by my host).

My current working solution is a bit ad hock. Any input on improving this would be appreciated:

class RepeatingTask(object):
    def __init__(self, first, logfile):
        self.current = first
        self.logfile = logfile

    def page(self):
        self.process_request()
        self.increment()
        self.log_progress()

    def process_request(self):
        # do processing here... 
        pass

    def increment(self):
        # set self.current = next item for processing 
        # when items are exhausted, set self.current=None
        pass

    def log_progress(self):
        if self.current is None:
            os.remove(self.logfile)
        else:
            with open(self.logfile, 'w') as logfile:
                logfile.write(json.dumps([["current","key-xyz"],
                                          [self.current,self.val_abc]]))

    def resume(self):
        try:
            with open(self.logfile, 'r') as logfile:
                content = logfile.read()
        except IOError:
            return False
        content = json.loads(content)
        content = dict(zip(content[0],content[1]))
        self.current = content['current']
        self.val_abc = content['key-xyz']
        return True


if __name__ == "__main__":
    task_object = RepeatingTask("first_item_to_process","/path/to/logfile")
    if task_object.resume():
        print "Resuming progress, current:", task_object.current
    else:
        print "Starting freash, current:", task_object.current
    while task_object.current is not None:
        task_object.page()
        # do some work
        print "Next:", task_object.current

Answer 1

You may want to consider using the standard Python logging module to log in the information, and just keep the parser.

import logging

logger = logging.getLogger('repeatingApp')
hdlr = logging.FileHandler('/path/to/logfile')
hdlr.setFormatter(logging.Formatter('%(message)s'))
logger.addHandler(hdlr) 
logger.setLevel(logging.WARNING)

class RepeatingTask(object):
    def page(self):
        self.process_request()
        self.increment()
        logger.info(json.dumps([["current","key-xyz"],
                                [self.current,self.val_abc]]))