[LOG4J2-3372] ConsoleAppender on Windows does not use platform default encoding

• Type: Bug
• Status: Open
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 2.17.1
• Component/s: Appenders

Language

Java

• Assignee: Piotr Karwasz
• Reporter: Oliver Matz
• Created: 28/Jan/22 14:32
• Updated: 08/Nov/22 21:25

Description

The attached example outputs a short string containing non-ascii characters ("Schöner Spaß") both to System.out and via log4j2 to a ConsoleAppender with target SYSTEM_OUT.

When I run the example in my IDE, it outputs the string correctly both times, as expected

However, if I run the example in a console on my Windows Desktop (10.0), only the output to System.out is correct. The non-ascii-characters get broken in the output of log4j2.

I know that a workaround is to add charset="IBM850" in the PatternLayout, but this clearly causes problems if the application runs in a different environment.

I definitely expect that log4j uses the platform default encoding, just as System.out does, and this seems to be other peoples' expectation, too. See e.g. LOG4J2-2929, stating incorrectly that "Currently PatternLayout always uses the default charset if none is specified explicitly."

Another workaround is, of course, to specify a certain encoding (e.g. UTF-8) both for System.out and for the PatternLayout and to require the user to set the windows codepage (using e.g. CHCP 65001). I dislike that approach because it defeats the purpose of the "platform default encoding" and places a burden on the user

Issue Links

• is related to: LOG4J2-783 PatternLayout's default charset should not be UTF-8
• is related to: LOG4J2-1636 Console Appender does not pick up Oracle Java 8's sun.stdout.encoding and sun.stderr.encoding