diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 848a56057..2e6eb07c0 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -73,6 +73,10 @@ The ability to set a thread name, previously only used by the reactor code, is
 now part of the `spdk_thread_allocate()` API.  Users may specify a thread name
 which will show up in tools like `gdb`.
 
+### Log
+
+The API spdk_trace_dump() now takes a new parameter to allow the caller to
+specify stdout or stderr for example.
 
 ## v17.07: Build system improvements, userspace vhost-blk target, and GPT bdev
 
diff --git a/include/spdk/log.h b/include/spdk/log.h
index 658e57c24..535620417 100644
--- a/include/spdk/log.h
+++ b/include/spdk/log.h
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ enum spdk_log_level spdk_log_get_print_level(void);
 void spdk_log(enum spdk_log_level level, const char *file, const int line, const char *func,
 	      const char *format, ...) __attribute__((__format__(__printf__, 5, 6)));
 
-void spdk_trace_dump(const char *label, const uint8_t *buf, size_t len);
+void spdk_trace_dump(FILE *fp, const char *label, const uint8_t *buf, size_t len);
 
 bool spdk_log_get_trace_flag(const char *flag);
 int spdk_log_set_trace_flag(const char *flag);
diff --git a/include/spdk_internal/log.h b/include/spdk_internal/log.h
index 6eb179f04..764dc9357 100644
--- a/include/spdk_internal/log.h
+++ b/include/spdk_internal/log.h
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ __attribute__((constructor)) static void register_trace_flag_##flag(void) \
 	do {										\
 		extern struct spdk_trace_flag FLAG;					\
 		if ((FLAG.enabled) && (LEN)) {						\
-			spdk_trace_dump((LABEL), (BUF), (LEN));				\
+			spdk_trace_dump(stderr, (LABEL), (BUF), (LEN));			\
 		}									\
 	} while (0)
 
diff --git a/lib/log/log.c b/lib/log/log.c
index ba7b7f3ca..0e4e43448 100644
--- a/lib/log/log.c
+++ b/lib/log/log.c
@@ -166,9 +166,9 @@ fdump(FILE *fp, const char *label, const uint8_t *buf, size_t len)
 }
 
 void
-spdk_trace_dump(const char *label, const uint8_t *buf, size_t len)
+spdk_trace_dump(FILE *fp, const char *label, const uint8_t *buf, size_t len)
 {
-	fdump(stderr, label, buf, len);
+	fdump(fp, label, buf, len);
 }
 
 static struct spdk_trace_flag *
diff --git a/test/unit/lib/log/log.c/log_ut.c b/test/unit/lib/log/log.c/log_ut.c
index 9af932af7..615ee6301 100644
--- a/test/unit/lib/log/log.c/log_ut.c
+++ b/test/unit/lib/log/log.c/log_ut.c
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ log_test(void)
 	SPDK_WARNLOG("log warning unit test\n");
 	SPDK_DEBUGLOG(SPDK_TRACE_LOG, "log trace test\n");
 	SPDK_TRACEDUMP(SPDK_TRACE_LOG, "log trace dump test:", "trace dump", 10);
-	spdk_trace_dump("spdk dump test:", "spdk dump", 9);
+	spdk_trace_dump(stderr, "spdk dump test:", "spdk dump", 9);
 
 	spdk_log_close();
 }