Log4J: How do I redirect an OutputStream or Writer to logger's writer(s)?

Question

I have a method which runs asynchronously after start, using OutputStream or Writer as parameter.

It acts as a recording adapter for an OutputStream or Writer (it's a third party API I can't change).

How could I pass Log4J's internal OutputStream or Writer to that method?
...because Log4J swallows System.out and System.err, I was using before.

Answer 1

My suggestion is, why dont you write your OutputStream then?! I was about to write one for you, but I found this good example on the net, check it out!

LogOutputStream.java

/*
 * Jacareto Copyright (c) 2002-2005
 * Applied Computer Science Research Group, Darmstadt University of
 * Technology, Institute of Mathematics & Computer Science,
 * Ludwigsburg University of Education, and Computer Based
 * Learning Research Group, Aachen University. All rights reserved.
 *
 * Jacareto is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
 * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
 * version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * Jacareto is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
 * General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
 * License along with Jacareto; if not, write to the Free
 * Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
 *
 */

package jacareto.toolkit.log4j;


import org.apache.log4j.Level;
import org.apache.log4j.Logger;

import java.io.OutputStream;

/**
 * This class logs all bytes written to it as output stream with a specified logging level.
 *
 * @author <a href="mailto:[email protected]">Christian Spannagel</a>
 * @version 1.0
 */
public class LogOutputStream extends OutputStream {
    /** The logger where to log the written bytes. */
    private Logger logger;

    /** The level. */
    private Level level;

    /** The internal memory for the written bytes. */
    private String mem;

    /**
     * Creates a new log output stream which logs bytes to the specified logger with the specified
     * level.
     *
     * @param logger the logger where to log the written bytes
     * @param level the level
     */
    public LogOutputStream (Logger logger, Level level) {
        setLogger (logger);
        setLevel (level);
        mem = "";
    }

    /**
     * Sets the logger where to log the bytes.
     *
     * @param logger the logger
     */
    public void setLogger (Logger logger) {
        this.logger = logger;
    }

    /**
     * Returns the logger.
     *
     * @return DOCUMENT ME!
     */
    public Logger getLogger () {
        return logger;
    }

    /**
     * Sets the logging level.
     *
     * @param level DOCUMENT ME!
     */
    public void setLevel (Level level) {
        this.level = level;
    }

    /**
     * Returns the logging level.
     *
     * @return DOCUMENT ME!
     */
    public Level getLevel () {
        return level;
    }

    /**
     * Writes a byte to the output stream. This method flushes automatically at the end of a line.
     *
     * @param b DOCUMENT ME!
     */
    public void write (int b) {
        byte[] bytes = new byte[1];
        bytes[0] = (byte) (b & 0xff);
        mem = mem + new String(bytes);

        if (mem.endsWith ("\n")) {
            mem = mem.substring (0, mem.length () - 1);
            flush ();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Flushes the output stream.
     */
    public void flush () {
        logger.log (level, mem);
        mem = "";
    }
}

Answer 2

You can use Log4j IOStreams

The IOStreams component is a Log4j API extension that provides numerous classes from java.io that can either write to a Logger while writing to another OutputStream or Writer, or the contents read by an InputStream or Reader can be wiretapped by a Logger.

You can create an OutputStream in this way:

OutputStream outputStream = IoBuilder
            .forLogger(logger)
            .buildOutputStream();

Below is an example with Appium, starting it programmatically and controlling its log with log4j.

    final Logger logger = LogManager.getLogger(getClass());

    cap = new DesiredCapabilities();
    cap.setCapability("noReset", "false");

    //Build the Appium service
    builder = new AppiumServiceBuilder();
    builder.withIPAddress("127.0.0.1");
    builder.usingPort(4723);
    builder.withCapabilities(cap);
    builder.withArgument(GeneralServerFlag.SESSION_OVERRIDE);
    builder.withArgument(GeneralServerFlag.LOG_LEVEL,"debug");

    //Start the server with the builder
    service = AppiumDriverLocalService.buildService(builder);

    OutputStream outputStream = IoBuilder
            .forLogger(logger)
            .buildOutputStream();
    service.addOutPutStream(outputStream);

    service.start();

Hope this helps!!!

Answer 3

Source: http://sysgears.com/articles/how-to-redirect-stdout-and-stderr-writing-to-a-log4j-appender/

Blockquote

Log4j doesn't allow to catch stdout and stderr messages out of the box. However, if you are using third party components and have to log messages that they flush to the streams, then you can do a little trick and implement custom output stream that supports logging.

This has already been done by Jim Moore (see the LoggingOutputStream in log4j source code). The only issue is that the JimMoore's LoggingOutputStream requires org.apache.log4j.Category and org.apache.log4j.Priority which are now partially deprecated.

Here is modified LoggingOutputStream that avoids deprecated methods:

public class LoggingOutputStream extends OutputStream {

    /**
     * Default number of bytes in the buffer.
     */
    private static final int DEFAULT_BUFFER_LENGTH = 2048;

    /**
     * Indicates stream state.
     */
    private boolean hasBeenClosed = false;

    /**
     * Internal buffer where data is stored.
     */
    private byte[] buf;

    /**
     * The number of valid bytes in the buffer.
     */
    private int count;

    /**
     * Remembers the size of the buffer.
     */
    private int curBufLength;

    /**
     * The logger to write to.
     */
    private Logger log;

    /**
     * The log level.
     */
    private Level level;

    /**
     * Creates the Logging instance to flush to the given logger.
     *
     * @param log         the Logger to write to
     * @param level       the log level
     * @throws IllegalArgumentException in case if one of arguments
     *                                  is  null.
     */
    public LoggingOutputStream(final Logger log,
                               final Level level)
            throws IllegalArgumentException {
        if (log == null || level == null) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                    "Logger or log level must be not null");
        }
        this.log = log;
        this.level = level;
        curBufLength = DEFAULT_BUFFER_LENGTH;
        buf = new byte[curBufLength];
        count = 0;
    }

    /**
     * Writes the specified byte to this output stream.
     *
     * @param b the byte to write
     * @throws IOException if an I/O error occurs.
     */
    public void write(final int b) throws IOException {
        if (hasBeenClosed) {
            throw new IOException("The stream has been closed.");
        }
        // don't log nulls
        if (b == 0) {
            return;
        }
        // would this be writing past the buffer?
        if (count == curBufLength) {
            // grow the buffer
            final int newBufLength = curBufLength +
                    DEFAULT_BUFFER_LENGTH;
            final byte[] newBuf = new byte[newBufLength];
            System.arraycopy(buf, 0, newBuf, 0, curBufLength);
            buf = newBuf;
            curBufLength = newBufLength;
        }

        buf[count] = (byte) b;
        count++;
    }

    /**
     * Flushes this output stream and forces any buffered output
     * bytes to be written out.
     */
    public void flush() {
        if (count == 0) {
            return;
        }
        final byte[] bytes = new byte[count];
        System.arraycopy(buf, 0, bytes, 0, count);
        String str = new String(bytes);
        log.log(level, str);
        count = 0;
    }

    /**
     * Closes this output stream and releases any system resources
     * associated with this stream.
     */
    public void close() {
        flush();
        hasBeenClosed = true;
    }
}

Now you can catch messages that are flushed to stderr or stdout in the following way:

System.setErr(new PrintStream(new LoggingOutputStream(
        Logger.getLogger("outLog"), Level.ERROR)));

The log4j.properties configuration:

log4j.logger.outLog=error, out_log

log4j.appender.out_log=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.out_log.file=/logs/error.log
log4j.appender.out_log.MaxFileSize=10MB
log4j.appender.out_log.threshold=error

Dmitriy Pavlenko, SysGears

Blockquote