LOG4J: Modify logged message using custom appender

Question

For security reasons, I need to look at every logged message in my app and possibly modify it before it goes to the log file. I figured I could write a custom appender (exte

Answer 1

I'm not entirely sure why creating a new LoggingEvent is so onerous. This seems to work for me:

package test.logging;

import org.apache.log4j.DailyRollingFileAppender;
import org.apache.log4j.spi.LoggingEvent;

public class MyDailyRollingFileAppender extends DailyRollingFileAppender {

    @Override
    protected void subAppend(LoggingEvent event) {
        String modifiedMessage = String.format("**** Message modified by MyDailyRollingFileAppender ****\n\n%s\n\n**** Finished modified message ****", event.getMessage());
        LoggingEvent modifiedEvent = new LoggingEvent(event.getFQNOfLoggerClass(), event.getLogger(), event.getTimeStamp(), event.getLevel(), modifiedMessage,
                                                      event.getThreadName(), event.getThrowableInformation(), event.getNDC(), event.getLocationInformation(),
                                                      event.getProperties());

        super.subAppend(modifiedEvent);
    }

}

With this test:

package test;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;

public class TestLogging {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Logger log = Logger.getLogger(TestLogging.class);
        log.info("I am testing my logging");
        log.info("Here is an exception", new Exception());
    }

}

and this configuration:

I am getting the following output:

2011-10-14 10:09:09,322 INFO  () [main] TestLogging - **** Message modified by MyDailyRollingFileAppender ****

I am testing my logging

**** Finished modified message ****
2011-10-14 10:09:09,333 INFO  () [main] TestLogging - **** Message modified by MyDailyRollingFileAppender ****

Here is an exception

**** Finished modified message ****
java.lang.Exception
    at test.TestLogging.main(TestLogging.java:10)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:120)

Although I have done something similar to this, I used a slightly different approach. Instead of writing subclasses of each type of Appender I wanted to use, I created an Appender which wraps other Appender objects, and modifies the message before sending to the wrapped Appenders. Something like this:

package test.logging;

import org.apache.log4j.Appender;
import org.apache.log4j.AppenderSkeleton;
import org.apache.log4j.spi.AppenderAttachable;
import org.apache.log4j.spi.LoggingEvent;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Enumeration;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

public class MyAppenderWrapper extends AppenderSkeleton implements AppenderAttachable {

    private final List appenders = new ArrayList();

    public void close() {
        synchronized (appenders) {
            for (Appender appender : appenders) {
                appender.close();
            }
        }
    }

    public boolean requiresLayout() {
        return false;
    }

    public void addAppender(Appender appender) {
        synchronized (appenders) {
            appenders.add(appender);
        }
    }

    public Enumeration getAllAppenders() {
        return Collections.enumeration(appenders);
    }

    public Appender getAppender(String name) {
        synchronized (appenders) {
            for (Appender appender : appenders) {
                if (appender.getName().equals(name)) {
                    return appender;
                }
            }
        }
        return null;
    }

    public boolean isAttached(Appender appender) {
        synchronized (appenders) {
            for (Appender wrapped : appenders) {
                if (wrapped.equals(appender)) {
                    return true;
                }
            }
            return false;
        }
    }

    public void removeAllAppenders() {
        synchronized (appenders) {
            appenders.clear();
        }
    }

    public void removeAppender(Appender appender) {
        synchronized (appenders) {
            for (Iterator i = appenders.iterator(); i.hasNext(); ) {
                if (i.next().equals(appender)) {
                    i.remove();
                }
            }
        }
    }

    public void removeAppender(String name) {
        synchronized (appenders) {
            for (Iterator i = appenders.iterator(); i.hasNext(); ) {
                if (i.next().getName().equals(name)) {
                    i.remove();
                }
            }
        }
    }

    @Override
    protected void append(LoggingEvent event) {
        String modifiedMessage = String.format("**** Message modified by MyAppenderWrapper ****\n\n%s\n\n**** Finished modified message ****", event.getMessage());
        LoggingEvent modifiedEvent = new LoggingEvent(event.getFQNOfLoggerClass(), event.getLogger(), event.getTimeStamp(), event.getLevel(), modifiedMessage,
                                                      event.getThreadName(), event.getThrowableInformation(), event.getNDC(), event.getLocationInformation(),
                                                      event.getProperties());

        synchronized (appenders) {
            for (Appender appender : appenders) {
                appender.doAppend(modifiedEvent);
            }
        }
    }

}

Which you could configure like:

That way the message is still sent to the original appenders but with the modified message.