[VELOCITY-168] RFE: switch to commons-logging

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Affects Version/s: 1.4
• Component/s: Engine
• Environment: Operating System: All; Platform: All
• Bugzilla Id: 19140
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Jens Elkner
• Created: 18/Apr/03 12:04
• Updated: 30/Aug/23 16:48
• Resolved: 29/Dec/08 04:14

Description

Actually having a quick look at the logging capabilities/usage of velocity,
I feel, that this one makes the package quite unstable and even defeats or
complicates the usage of most wanted features of several logging "system",
no matter whether jdk, log4j or Avalon/logkit (e.g. "source location", since
everything is tunneled through a very limitted LogSystem, logging stacktraces).

No matter, how one winds the velocity log wrapper, only in some cases, one gets
the behavior, he expects from "his" logging system.

IMHO, velocity developers should not have to cope with a new LogSystem over
another one, since there is no need to do that and the "new" one is only
a limitted wrapper [for a wrapper for a wrapper ...] for another LogSystem.
As seen (BUGs 19131,19133,19335,19336,19337), this introduces incompleteness,
is cumbersum, halfhearted and another point of unstability/failure/bugs.

So, I suggest to make a transition to one ultra-thin and easy to use wrapper:
the Jakarta Commons Logging package (JCL).

Advantages are clear: Everyone can still plugin the Log system of its choice,
no matter whether jdk1.4, log4j, logkit or any other. Furthermore,
velocity developers can use log.

{trace|...|fatal}

by just inserting 3 Lines
into their classes and do not need to care about setting up and configuring
the LogSystem, which is actually wrapped. So they can focus on the real
job (velocity) and do not have to take care of the dozen of log systems
flying around.

Also this reduces dependencies and thus point of failures on certain
log sys, since even if the user/developer is not required to configure
anything, since JCL sets up the wrapper in that case: Log4J or JDK1.4
or as fallback a SimpleLog, which just System.err.print()s all messages.

So there is always one available and no-one should have to use System.err
or system.out to print out stack traces and/or error messages!

So, what do you think?

If you want me to do that, no problem - just drop me a note.

For more information wrt. JCL, see http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/logging.html .

Issue Links

• relates to: VELOCITY-392 Switch to a better log system - slf4j