My logback java based (no xml) config is ignored

Question

Trying to configure logback and not able to have my configuration used when running the app.

There is a lot of console output, even if I remove all my configuration, and there is no file output, so I suppose the console output is done with some default configuration.

Here is my configuration so far:

@Configuration
public class Log4j {

    private final static String PATTERN = "%date %-5level [%thread] %logger{36} %m%n %rEx";

    @Bean 
    public static LoggerContext loggerContext() {
        return (LoggerContext) LoggerFactory.getILoggerFactory();
    }

    @Bean (initMethod = "start", destroyMethod = "stop")
    public static PatternLayoutEncoder encoder (LoggerContext ctx) {
        PatternLayoutEncoder encoder = new PatternLayoutEncoder();
        encoder.setContext(ctx);
        encoder.setPattern(PATTERN);
        return encoder;
    }

    @Bean (initMethod = "start", destroyMethod = "stop")
    public static ConsoleAppender consoleAppender (LoggerContext context, PatternLayoutEncoder encoder) {
        ConsoleAppender consoleAppender = new ConsoleAppender();
        consoleAppender.setContext(context);
        consoleAppender.setEncoder(encoder);
        return consoleAppender;
    }

    @Bean (initMethod = "start", destroyMethod = "stop")
    public static FileAppender fileAppender(LoggerContext context, PatternLayoutEncoder encoder) throws IOException {
        RollingFileAppender fileAppender = new RollingFileAppender();
        fileAppender.setContext(context);
        fileAppender.setEncoder(encoder);
        fileAppender.setFile("build.log");
        return fileAppender;
    }

    @Bean (initMethod = "start", destroyMethod = "stop")
    public static SMTPAppender mailAppender(LoggerContext context) {
        SMTPAppender mailAppender = new SMTPAppender();
        mailAppender.setContext(context);
        mailAppender.setName("GmailAppender");
        mailAppender.setSMTPHost("smtp.gmail.com");
        mailAppender.setSMTPPort(465); // 587
        mailAppender.setSTARTTLS(true);
        mailAppender.setUsername("[email protected]");
        mailAppender.setPassword("xxxxxx");
        mailAppender.setFrom("[email protected]");
        mailAppender.addTo("[email protected]");
        mailAppender.setSubject("[LOG] Java - learnintouch");
        PatternLayout patternLayout = new PatternLayout();
        patternLayout.setPattern(PATTERN);
        mailAppender.setLayout(patternLayout);
        LevelFilter levelRangeFilter = new LevelFilter();
        levelRangeFilter.setLevel(Level.ERROR);
        mailAppender.addFilter(levelRangeFilter);
        return mailAppender;
    }

    @Bean
    public static Logger registerSpringLogger(ConsoleAppender consoleAppender) {
        Logger logger = new Logger(...
        logger.setLevel(Level.DEBUG);
        logger.addAppender(consoleAppender);
        return logger;
    }

Even if I set all the register beans to OFF level there is still a lot of output in the console.

How can I have my above configuration NOT being ignored ?

UPDATE: In fact, the configuration was not ignored, it was simply drowned in a lot of console output. One way to reduce this console output was to add a logback.xml file in the src/main/resources directory containing the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!-- This empty file is one way to prevent logback from logging like crazy -->
<configuration />

Then, the following configuration allowed me to output only my application loggers and the sql statements:

  @Bean
  public static Logger registerThalasoftLogger(LoggerContext loggerContext,
      ConsoleAppender consoleAppender, FileAppender fileAppender) throws IOException {
    Logger logger = loggerContext.getLogger("com.nsn.nitro.project.data");
    logger.setLevel(Level.DEBUG); // Display the application loggers
    logger.addAppender(consoleAppender);
    logger.addAppender(fileAppender);
    return logger;
  }

  @Bean
  public static Logger registerSpringLogger(LoggerContext loggerContext,
      ConsoleAppender consoleAppender) {
    Logger logger = loggerContext.getLogger("org.springframework");
    logger.setLevel(Level.OFF);
    logger.addAppender(consoleAppender);
    return logger;
  }

  @Bean
  public static Logger registerJdbcSqlOnlyLogger(LoggerContext loggerContext,
      ConsoleAppender consoleAppender, FileAppender fileAppender) throws IOException {
    Logger logger = loggerContext.getLogger("jdbc.sqlonly");
    logger.setLevel(Level.DEBUG); // Display the sql statements with their parameters values
    logger.addAppender(consoleAppender);
    logger.addAppender(fileAppender);
    return logger;
  }

  @Bean
  public static Logger registerHibernateTypeLogger(LoggerContext loggerContext,
      ConsoleAppender consoleAppender) {
    Logger logger = loggerContext.getLogger("org.hibernate.type");
    logger.setLevel(Level.OFF);
    logger.addAppender(consoleAppender);
    return logger;
  }

  @Bean
  public static Logger registerHibernateSqlLogger(LoggerContext loggerContext,
      ConsoleAppender consoleAppender) {
    Logger logger = loggerContext.getLogger("org.hibernate.SQL");
    logger.setLevel(Level.OFF);
    logger.addAppender(consoleAppender);
    return logger;
  }

  @Bean
  public static Logger registerLog4JdbcLogger(LoggerContext loggerContext,
      ConsoleAppender consoleAppender) throws IOException {
    Logger logger = loggerContext.getLogger("log4jdbc.debug");
    logger.setLevel(Level.OFF);
    logger.addAppender(consoleAppender);
    return logger;
  }

Note that I see this update as a work around and not as a solution since it makes use of a logback.xml file. My original question was about an XML free configuration.

Answer 1

We needed something like this implemented in order to be able to re-configure the logging of our application, so we decided to open source it (under an Apache 2.0 license) and put it on Github. Please have a look at the logback-configuration project.

If you find it useful, let me know (either e-mail me, you can find my e-mail on the project's pom.xml, or reply here) and I'll make a release and push it to Maven Central.

The project is pretty small, but very straight-forward. You can have a look at the handful of tests to better understand how to do things.