Grails log4j appender configuration seemingly ignored

Question

I am trying to customize my Grails application's logging config, but the appenders (and their layout patterns) are seemingly ignored.

In Config.groovy:

log4j = {
appenders {
    console name: 'stdout', layout: pattern(conversionPattern: '%c{2} %m%n')
    file name: 'fileLogger', file: 'application.log', layout: pattern(conversionPattern: '%d{dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss,SSS} %5p %c{1} - %m%n')
}

error  'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.servlet',        // controllers
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.pages',          // GSP
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.sitemesh',       // layouts
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping.filter', // URL mapping
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping',        // URL mapping
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons',            // core / classloading
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins',            // plugins
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.orm.hibernate',      // hibernate integration
       'org.springframework',
       'org.hibernate',
       'net.sf.ehcache.hibernate'

info   'grails.app'
debug  'org.hibernate.SQL'
trace  'org.hibernate.type'
}

The logger section actually gets considered by Log4J (e.g., if I comment the debug and trace lines for hibernate then the logging of Hibernate statements stops as expected).

But I have been trying different versions of the appenders section and none of it seems to be considered, actually the format applied to the console is something that only includes the message itself (e.g., if I write

log.info("test")

in code I will get

test

in console and nothing in the log file.

I added "debug=true" to the section, and also set 'org.apache.log4j' to trace but it seemed to change nothing.

It's probably something trivial but I cannot figure it out. :/

I'm using Grails 2.3.0RC2.

---

So I did as Alidad suggested and switched my configuration to:

log4j = {
appenders {
    console name: 'stdout', layout: pattern(conversionPattern: '%d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss,SSS Z} [%t] %-5p %c{1}:%L %x - %m%n')
}

root {
    info 'stdout'
}

error  stdout:
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.servlet',        // controllers
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.pages',          // GSP
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.sitemesh',       // layouts
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping.filter', // URL mapping
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping',        // URL mapping
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons',            // core / classloading
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins',            // plugins
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.orm.hibernate',      // hibernate integration
       'org.springframework',
       'org.hibernate',
       'net.sf.ehcache.hibernate'

info   stdout:
       'grails.app'
}

However while this is an improvement (my layout isn't ignored) it also leads to everything being logged twice:

2013-09-08 18:00:19,447 +0100 [localhost-startStop-1] INFO  BootStrap:152  - Init completed
Init completed
2013-09-08 18:00:19,641 +0100 [localhost-startStop-1] INFO  NimbleBootStrap:152  - Creating default user account with username:user
Creating default user account with username:user

Actually this happens even if I comment the "root" section out.

Answer 1

Try applying the apender to your info level

   log4j = {
     ...
     root{
       info  'stdout'
     }
    ...
   }

I think what you are missing is loggers do not know where to send the messages.

Generally you can do that by

error myAppender:      "grails.app.controllers.BookController",
      myFileAppender:  ["grails.app.controllers.BookController",
                        "grails.app.services.BookService"],
      rollingFile:     "grails.app.controllers.BookController"

or define it at the root level for all levels. Take a look at Documentation 4.1.2 Logging

---

log4j = {
appenders {
    console name: 'stdout', layout: pattern(conversionPattern: '%d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss,SSS Z} [%t] %-5p %c{1}:%L %x - %m%n')
}


error  stdout:
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.servlet',        // controllers
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.pages',          // GSP
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.sitemesh',       // layouts
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping.filter', // URL mapping
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping',        // URL mapping
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons',            // core / classloading
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins',            // plugins
       'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.orm.hibernate',      // hibernate integration
       'org.springframework',
       'org.hibernate',
       'net.sf.ehcache.hibernate'

info   stdout:
       'grails.app' , additivity: false
}