log4j file renaming strategy

Question

I'm using log4j 1.2.15 and I wonder if someone has a remedy to the annoying file renaming strategy log4j is using.

I'll try to explain: I am using the following RollingFileAppender that creates 11 log files each one 3KB size.

log4j.appender.logfile=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.logfile.File=server.log log4j.appender.logfile.MaxFileSize=3KB log4j.appender.logfile.MaxBackupIndex=10

The problem is that while creating a new log file, log4j creates server.log.1, server.log.2 etc...

Can I configure log4j to keep the ".log" suffix, and create for instance server.1.log?

Thanks in advance Guy

Answer 1

I'm doing this using an xml configuration (might be possible without) and Apache Extras Companion™ for Apache log4j™ (an extra library for log4j). I don't think this works without the extra's, but it might.

The key is to use the FileNamePattern.

<appender name="logger" class="org.apache.log4j.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
    <rollingPolicy class="org.apache.log4j.rolling.FixedWindowRollingPolicy">
        <param name="FileNamePattern" value="/server.%i.log" />
        <param name="MaxIndex" value="10" />
    </rollingPolicy>

    <triggeringPolicy class="org.apache.log4j.rolling.SizeBasedTriggeringPolicy">
        <param name="MaxFileSize" value="3000" /> 
    </triggeringPolicy>
</appender>