Log messages in plain text format in Java

In the earlier article, we have seen how to create logs. However, that was in html format.

I have been recently given task of creating logs in text format – just wanted to share this with you. The pre-requisite jars will be same as mentioned earlier and it will be a pretty simple task.

The below simple code logs the information messages, debug messages and the error messages.

Logger API: http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/apidocs/org/apache/log4j/Logger.html

There is one log4jconfig.properties which contains the logger file properties. So we will use another java class to access the properties file.

The entries which I have used in the log4jconfig.properties file are:

log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, file

log4j.appender.file=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender

log4j.appender.file.File=logger.log

log4j.appender.file.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout

log4j.appender.file.layout.ConversionPattern=%d [%t] %-5p %c - %m%n

Log4Logger.java

/*

 * Log4Logger.java

 * Snehanshu Chatterjee

 */

import java.util.Properties;

import org.apache.log4j.Category;

import org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator;

public class Log4Logger extends org.apache.log4j.Logger {

   

    static Category category=null;

   

   

    /** Creates a new instance of Log4Logger */

    public Log4Logger(String name) {

        super(name);

    }

    /** static block for getting the file path scheduler.properties and reads the properties file*/

    static{

        try{

            Properties logProp=new Properties();

          

            String fName = new String("./config/log4jconfig.properties");

            try {

                PropertyConfigurator.configure(fName);

               

            } catch(Exception e) {

                System.out.println(e.getMessage());

            }

        } catch(Exception e){

            System.out.println(e.getMessage());

        }

    }

   

    public static Category returnLogger(String name) {

       

        category= Log4Logger.getLogger(name);

        return category;

    }

   

}

The below code which actually logs any information.

LoggerDemo.java

/*

LoggerTest.java

Snehanshu Chatterjee

*/

import org.apache.log4j.Category;

public class LoggerTest {

      static Category LOGGGER = Log4Logger.returnLogger(LoggerTest.class.getName());

     

     

      public static void main(String args[]) {

            LOGGGER.debug("Debug message");

            LOGGGER.info("Info message");

            LOGGGER.error("Error message");

            LOGGGER.fatal("Fatal message");

            LOGGGER.warn("Warning message");

      }

}

Output in the logger file

2011-06-23 19:38:50,470 [main] DEBUG test.LoggerTest - Debug message

2011-06-23 19:38:50,470 [main] INFO  test.LoggerTest - Info message

2011-06-23 19:38:50,470 [main] ERROR test.LoggerTest - Error message

2011-06-23 19:38:50,470 [main] FATAL test.LoggerTest - Fatal message

2011-06-23 19:38:50,470 [main] WARN  test.LoggerTest - Warning message