Log4j Configuration

You can use a class JsonLog4jLayout to configure your Log4j logger to achieve JSON format.

Here is an example of the log4j.properties file:

log4j.rootLogger=INFO, FILE

log4j.appender.FILE=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender  
log4j.appender.FILE.layout=org.javalite.logging.JsonLog4jLayout

Such a configuration will convert every log line into a self-contained JSON document with the same values as a regular log line. For example, this code:

Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(getClass());
logger.info("hello");
logger.error("world");

will print the following into a log:

{"level":"INFO","timestamp":"Fri Feb 24 15:20:15 CST 2017","thread":"main","logger":"org.javalite.activejdbc.logging.JsonLog4jLayoutSpec","message":"hello"}
{"level":"ERROR","timestamp":"Fri Feb 24 15:20:15 CST 2017","thread":"main","logger":"org.javalite.activejdbc.logging.JsonLog4jLayoutSpec","message":"world"}

Such information id easy to ship to a log analyzer such as Splunk as well as various ELK for easy search and analysis.

Custom date format

In order to format the timestamp in a log line you can add an optional parameter: DateFormatPattern:

log4j.appender.FILE.layout=org.javalite.logging.JsonLog4jLayout
log4j.appender.FILE.layout.DateFormatPattern=yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS

The format for this parameter is the same as for SimpleDateFormat