Log4j configuration in webapplication

[John Lincoln]

Hi,

I am trying to make changes to an application which uses a natively developed logging class. We have integrated log4j with custom class, so that it behined the scene log4j is used for logging

Right now the log4j.properties is read using

 
PropertyConfigurator.configure("log4j.properties"); 

We have placed the log4j.properties in root of src direcotry, i.e the code structure is as follows
src
|
|--->com
| |
| |-->testcompany
| | |
| | |-->util
| | | |
| | | | -->someutil.java
| |
|->log4j.properties


What we want to do is instead of reading from root of src we want to read from config/LogConfig directory like show below


src
|
|--->com
| |
| |-->testcompany
| | |
| | |-->util
| | | |--someutil.java
| |
| |
| |-->Config
| | |
| | |-->LogConfig
| | | |
| | | |--log4j.properties

I tried to set the same thing via propertyconfigurator, as shown below but it is not working

PropertyConfigurator.configure("/Congfig/LogConfig/log4j.properties"); 

can someone please throw some light

Thanks for all the help

[Paul Clapham]

Web applications don't have a "src" directory. Their classes are stored either in WEB-INF/classes or in a jar in WEB-INF/lib. So you should base your design planning on that rule. Once you have figured out where you want the config file to go (I put mine in WEB-INF/classes) then you can figure out how to get your deployment procedure (where you build your WAR or EAR for the application) to put it there.

(Also you might want to spell "congfig" better than that... )

[Pete Nelson]

I cannot speak for other containers (although I would think it would be similar), but for Tomcat, all that is required is that "log4j.properties" exist directly under WEB-INF/classes or WEB-INF/lib in my web application, along with the log4j jar file in WEB-INF/lib.

If log4j-xxx.jar is located on the web application's classpath (ie WEB-INF/lib), Tomcat should attempt to implement log4j. If I am missing my log4j.properties, it sends a message to standard out (catalina.out) that log4j was not properly initialized.

# log4j.properties
log4j.appender.LOG1=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.LOG1.File=${catalina.home}/logs/MyApp.log
log4j.appender.LOG1.MaxFileSize=5MB
log4j.appender.LOG1.MaxBackupIndex=5
log4j.appender.LOG1.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.LOG1.layout.ConversionPattern=[%d{dd/MMM/yyyy HH:mm:ss}] %-5p %.40c - %m%n

log4j.rootLogger=WARN,LOG1

Also, I haven't had to call "PropertyConfigurator.configure("log4j.properties");", it's generally been enough simply to call

Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(this.getClass());

[John Lincoln]

Hi Paul & Pete,

Thanks for the response.

Paul,

I have currently in WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties -- works

When i place the file in WEB-INF/classes/com/somecompany/config/log4j.properties -- does not work

Please let me know how can i read from com/somecompany/config directory

Thanks for all the help

[Jaikiran Pai]

As far as I know, the PropertyConfigurator uses the classloader to lookup the resource (i.e. the config file). So I guess this should work:

PropertyConfigurator.configure("com/somecompany/config/log4j.properties"); 

[John Lincoln]

That was first obvious thing i tired, but is not working. Any ideas

[Paul Clapham]

Next obvious thing to try:

PropertyConfigurator.configure("/com/somecompany/config/log4j.properties"); 

Final obvious thing to try is the thing which you already had working.