Disable HttpClient logging

Question

I am using commons-httpclient 3.1 in an integration test suite. The default logging for HttpClient is extremely noisy and I can't seem to turn it off. I've tried following the instructions here but none of them make any difference.

Mostly I just need to make the org.apache.http.wire logger shut up. Part of the problem is that I don't know what type of logger HttpClient is trying to use and most of the problem is I've never used this library before. I tried creating a log4j.properties file and dropping it in my test/resources folder, modifying the master logging.properties file in jre/lib, and sending in the various logging options to Maven as specified on the logging page, and none of them make any difference.

Any help is appreciated...this is driving me nuts.

UPDATE: A correction: it appears the output in question is actually originating through jwebunit's usage of HttpClient, not my own. Either way, it's not desirable.

UPDATE: Thanks for the attempts so far. I've tried everything suggested below but still no luck. I have a file commons-logging.properties in my src/test/resources folder with the following contents

org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory=org.apache.commons.logging.impl.Log4jFactory
log4j.configuration=log4j.properties

and a file log4j.properties in the same folder with the following contents

log4j.rootLogger=ERROR, stdout
log4j.appender.stdout=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
log4j.appender.stdout.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.stdout.layout.ConversionPattern=%5p [%c] %m%n

#This is the line that should make httpclient shut up
log4j.logger.org.apache.http=ERROR

However, when I run my tests I still get a bunch of output like this:

21:57:41.413 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "                                   [\r][\n]"
21:57:41.413 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\r][\n]"
21:57:41.413 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "                                   [\r][\n]"
21:57:41.413 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "                               </ul>[\n]"
21:57:41.413 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "    [\n]"
21:57:41.424 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.425 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\r][\n]"
21:57:41.425 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\r][\n]"
21:57:41.425 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "                   </div>[\r][\n]"
21:57:41.425 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "                </li>[\r][\n]"
21:57:41.425 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "            [\r][\n]"
21:57:41.425 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "            [\r][\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "        </ul>[\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "</div>[\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "</div>[\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.433 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "<div class="details">[\n]"
21:57:41.442 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.443 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.443 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "<div class="details-body details-precis  ">[\n]
"
21:57:41.443 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "<div class="details-state">[\n]"
21:57:41.443 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.443 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "</div>[\n]"
21:57:41.443 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "</div>[\n]"
21:57:41.443 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "</div>[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "</div>[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "</div>[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\n]"
21:57:41.455 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\r][\n]"
Destroying 1 processes21:57:41.465 [main] DEBUG org.apache.http.wire - << "[\r][\n]"

This output for everything that comes across the wire is making this library unusable for me...that is until I can figure out how to turn it off. Is there anything special I need to do to get this log configuration read in?

Answer 1

Update log4j.properties to include:

log4j.logger.httpclient.wire.header=WARN
log4j.logger.httpclient.wire.content=WARN

---

Note that if Log4j library is not installed, HttpClient (and therefore JWebUnit) will use logback. In this situation, create or edit logback.xml to include:

<configuration>
    <logger name="org.apache" level="WARN" />
    <logger name="httpclient" level="WARN" /> 
</configuration>

---

Setting the log level to WARN with Log4j using the package name org.apache.commons.httpclient in log4j.properties will not work as expected:

log4j.logger.org.apache.commons.httpclient=WARN

This is because the source for HttpClient (v3.1) uses the following log names:

public static Wire HEADER_WIRE = new Wire(LogFactory.getLog("httpclient.wire.header"));
public static Wire CONTENT_WIRE = new Wire(LogFactory.getLog("httpclient.wire.content"));