Commons Logging: Won't detect properties file

Question

So, I'm using apache commons logging because I'm also using PDFBox, and I just want to be consistent. I wanted to set this up in a few minutes so I could use the log entries to debug the issue in my application.

The problem is, my commons-logging.properties file is never detected. None of my configuration settings are detected. I can't change the logging level or do anything. All I get is my info entries, in the default format.

I'm using a maven-built project, and the file is in the root of my resources directory. Everything else in that directory is detectable on the classpath, just not this aparently.

Here is my pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.pilotfish</groupId>
    <artifactId>PDFViewer</artifactId>
    <version>1.0</version>

    <properties>
        <apache.commons.io.version>2.4</apache.commons.io.version>
        <apache.commons.logging.version>1.2</apache.commons.logging.version>
        <apache.fontbox.version>1.8.11</apache.fontbox.version>
        <apache.pdfbox.version>1.8.11</apache.pdfbox.version>
        <java.version>1.7</java.version>
        <maven.assembly.plugin.version>2.5.5</maven.assembly.plugin.version>
        <maven.compiler.plugin.version>3.1</maven.compiler.plugin.version>
        <maven.jar.plugin.version>2.6</maven.jar.plugin.version>
        <maven.source.plugin.version>3.0.0</maven.source.plugin.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
            <version>${apache.commons.io.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
            <version>${apache.commons.logging.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.pdfbox</groupId>
            <artifactId>fontbox</artifactId>
            <version>${apache.fontbox.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.pdfbox</groupId>
            <artifactId>pdfbox</artifactId>
            <version>${apache.pdfbox.version}</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${maven.compiler.plugin.version}</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>${java.version}</source>
                    <target>${java.version}</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${maven.assembly.plugin.version}</version>
                <configuration>
                    <archive>
                        <manifest>
                            <mainClass>com.pilotfish.eip.modules.pdfviewer.Main</mainClass>
                        </manifest>
                    </archive>
                    <descriptors>
                        <descriptor>src/assembly/assembly.xml</descriptor>
                    </descriptors>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>make-assembly</id>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>single</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-source-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${maven.source.plugin.version}</version>
                <configuration>
                    <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/classes/source/</outputDirectory>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>attach-sources</id>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>jar-no-fork</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>


</project>

Here is my commons-logging.properties file.

# Commons Logging Properties

# Doesn't seem to work... so annoying

org.apache.commons.logging.Log=org.apache.commons.logging.impl.Jdk14Logger

# JDK Handlers
handlers=java.util.logging.ConsoleHander

# Default log level
.level=DEBUG

# Log Formatter
java.util.logging.ConsoleHander.formatter=com.pilotfish.eip.modules.pdfviewer.log.LogFormatter
.formatter=com.pilotfish.eip.modules.pdfviewer.log.LogFormatter

I'm just trying to do some simple stuff here. I don't care about anything complicated, I just want my debug statements to work. It's not right that this won't be detected.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

one way I found is useful, especially when you want to pack log4j.properties into jar file and load that config in runtime.
simply put this in the beginning of the code to let the log4j load your properties inside jar.

  PropertyConfigurator.configure(this.getClass.getClassLoader.getResourceAsStream("log4j.properties"))

make sure your have log4j.properties packed into your jar.

Answer 2

You must specify where the logfile is at with a command line parameter:

-Djava.util.logging.config.file=/absolute/path/to/your/config/file/commons-logging.properties MyClass