I spent some time trying to get timestamps added to C++ printing, e.g .through cout.

I naive approach is to write a function get_current_time() and put it before all printing statements e.g.:

cout << get_current_time() << "Message" << endl;

This requires changing all logging statements. Then my googling stumbled upon this question which had an elegant solution incorporating a decorator object.

Further down the page however I came upon a much nicer solution that transcends languages and programs and can be applied to running shell commands. The answer I ended up stealing and adding to my .zshrc is as follows:

function add_timestamps() {
    awk '{print "["strftime()"]: "$0}'
}

This can be used after a program is run e.g. a.out | add_timestamps to add the current time before every line printed out by a.out.

Even top can be passed through this function, but with predictably nasty results!