Dynamically add appender with slf4j and log4j2

Question

I want to dynamically create an appender and add it to a logger. However, this seems not to be possible with slf4j. I can add my appender to a log4j logger but then I fail to retrieve the logger with the slf4j LoggerFactoy.

What I want to do: I create a test class (not a jUnit test) and pass a logger in the constructor for the test class to use. Every instance of the test class needs it's own logger and appender that saves the log so it can be later used in an HTML report.

What I tried (for simplicity I created a jUnit test):

  import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;

  import java.util.LinkedList;
  import java.util.List;

  import org.apache.logging.log4j.core.LogEvent;
  import org.junit.Test;
  import org.slf4j.helpers.Log4jLoggerFactory;

  import ch.fides.fusion.logging.ListAppender;

  public class ListAppenderTest {

      @Test
      public void test() {

          String testName = "test1";

          // the log messages are to be inserted in this list
          List<LogEvent> testLog = new LinkedList<>();

          // create log4j logger
          org.apache.logging.log4j.core.Logger log4jlogger = (org.apache.logging.log4j.core.Logger) org.apache.logging.log4j.LogManager
                                          .getLogger("Test:" + testName);

          // create appender and add it to the logger
          ListAppender listAppender = new ListAppender("Test:" + testName + ":MemoryAppender", testLog);
          log4jlogger.addAppender(listAppender);

          // get the slf4j logger
          org.slf4j.helpers.Log4jLoggerFactory loggerFactory = new Log4jLoggerFactory();
          org.slf4j.Logger testLogger = loggerFactory.getLogger("Test:" + testName);

          // test it
          final String TEST_MESSAGE = "test message";
          testLogger.info(TEST_MESSAGE);

          assertEquals(1, testLog.size());
          LogEvent logEvent = testLog.get(0);
          assertEquals(TEST_MESSAGE, logEvent.getMessage().getFormattedMessage() );
      }

  }

and this is my very basic appender:

 package ch.fides.fusion.logging;

  import java.util.List;

  import org.apache.logging.log4j.core.LogEvent;
  import org.apache.logging.log4j.core.appender.AbstractAppender;

  public class ListAppender extends AbstractAppender {

      private final List<LogEvent> log;

      public ListAppender(String name, List<LogEvent> testLog) {
          super(name, null, null);
          this.log = testLog;
      }

      @Override
      public void append(LogEvent logEvent) {
          log.add(new TestLogEvent(logEvent));
      }

  }

What can I do to get this to work? Maybe I am approaching this from the wrong angle but I would like to avoid creating my own logger class. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Accessing and manipulating log4j2 over slf4j by code/at runtime:

import org.apache.logging.log4j.LogManager;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.core.LoggerContext;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.Configuration;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.LoggerConfig;
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

public class Log4j2OverSlf4jConfigurator {

    final private static Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4j2OverSlf4jConfigurator.class);

    public static void main(final String[] args) {
        LOGGER.info("Starting");
        LoggerContext loggerContext = (LoggerContext) LogManager.getContext();
        Configuration configuration = loggerContext.getConfiguration();

        LOGGER.info("Filepath: {}", configuration.getConfigurationSource().getLocation());
        // Log4j root logger has no name attribute -> name == ""
        LoggerConfig rootLoggerConfig = configuration.getLoggerConfig("");

        rootLoggerConfig.getAppenders().forEach((name, appender) -> {
            LOGGER.info("Appender {}: {}", name, appender.getLayout().toString());
            // rootLoggerConfig.removeAppender(a.getName());
        });

        rootLoggerConfig.getAppenderRefs().forEach(ar -> {
            System.out.println("AppenderReference: " + ar.getRef());
        });

        // adding appenders
        configuration.addAppender(null);
    }
}

Reference: https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/customconfig.html