Log-files are important in the workflow for two reasons:
- Most importantly they keep track of any messages that are “non-fatal”, i.e. that do not stop the progress of the do-file. However, quite often you want to ignore those messages, unless you expect an error to have occurred, then you search through your log files.
- Convenient is to use the log-file to collect only that part of the output (results) that you will actually need for your research project.