[LOG4J2-409] Specifying log4jConfiguration in web.xml fails on Windows when using ${user.home}

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.0-beta8
• Fix Version/s: 2.0-rc1

Environment

Windows 7, Apache Tomcat 7, Java 7

• Assignee: Nick Williams
• Reporter: Frank Steinmann
• Created: 23/Sep/13 13:23
• Updated: 28/Jan/14 05:40
• Resolved: 28/Jan/14 05:40

Description

When specifying the context parameter log4jConfiguration in the web.xml of a web application and using ${user.home} as part of the path, e.g.

<context-param>
    <param-name>log4jConfiguration</param-name>
    <param-value>file://${user.home}/someDirectory/log4j2.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

the following exception is thrown on Windows systems:

java.net.URISyntaxException: Illegal character in authority at index 7: file://C:\Users\steinman/someDirectory/log4j2.xml
    at java.net.URI$Parser.fail(Unknown Source)
    at java.net.URI$Parser.parseAuthority(Unknown Source)
    at java.net.URI$Parser.parseHierarchical(Unknown Source)
    at java.net.URI$Parser.parse(Unknown Source)
    at java.net.URI.<init>(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.Configurator.initialize(Configurator.java:46)
    ...

It is because of the backslashes that are not allowed in URIs.

There is an example in the documentation using backslashes (http://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/webapp.html) which will produce the same exception.