Rodent of Unusual Size (Ken Coar): A little Rails logging helper

Just something I whipped up to make application event and exception logging a little more readable:

 #
 # Report something to the
    default logger, with a timestamp and
 # importance.
 #
 # severity
 # Symbolic name of one of the logger severity levels (e.g., :error).
 # This will be passed directly to the logger.
 #
 #
    message
 # A string, or array of strings, to be recorded one per line. Each
 # line will be prefixed with a timestamp and the severity.
 #
 def log_event(severity, message)
 text = message.dup
    tstamp = Time.now
 tstamp = (tstamp.respond_to?(:iso8601) \
 ? tstamp.iso8601 \
 : tstamp.strftime('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z'))
 tstamp = "[#{tstamp}] [#{severity.to_s.downcase}] "
 text =
    text.join("\n" + tstamp) if (text.kind_of?(Array))
 logger.send(severity.to_sym, tstamp + text)
 end
 
 #
 # Record an exception in the log, using the #log_event method.
 #
 # severity
 # See
    #log_event.
 #
 # e
 # An exception object of some sort.
 #
 # options
 # Hash for configuring logging options. Currently the only
 # option is :enable_backtrace (defaults to true).
 #
 def
    log_exception(severity, e, options={ :include_backtrace => true })
 message = [ "Exception #{e.class.name}: #{e.message}" ]
 if (options[:include_backtrace])
 message.push(' Exception
    backtrace:')
 if (e.backtrace.nil? || e.backtrace.empty?)
 message.push(' [empty backtrace]')
 else
 message += e.backtrace.collect { |line| ' ' + line }
 end
 end
 log_event(severity.to_sym,
    message)
 end
 

The test for the iso8601 method should be factored out and done once, probably in config/environment.rb, but you get the idea..