How to output messages to the Eclipse console when developing for Android

Question

How can I print messages (like a flag) to the Eclipse console (or log) when developing and debugging an Android app

Answer 1

Rather than trying to output to the console, Log will output to LogCat which you can find in Eclipse by going to: Window->Show View->Other…->Android->LogCat

Have a look at the reference for Log.

The benefits of using LogCat are that you can print different colours depending on your log type, e.g.: Log.d prints blue, Log.e prints orange. Also you can filter by log tag, log message, process id and/or by application name. This is really useful when you just want to see your app's logs and keep the other system stuff separate.