Grails Goodness: Use A Different Logging Configuration File

Since Grails 3 the logging configuration is in a separate file. Before Grails 3 we could specify the logging configuration in grails-app/conf/Config.groovy, since Grails 3 it is in the file grails-app/conf/logback.groovy. We also notice that since Grails 3 the default logging framework implementation is Logback. We can define a different Logback configuration file with the environment configuration property logging.config. We can set this property in grails-app/conf/application.yml, as Java system property (-Dlogging.config=<location>) or environment variable (LOGGING_CONFIG). Actually all rules for external configuration of Spring Boot apply for the configuration property logging.config.

In the following example configuration file we have a different way of logging in our Grails application. We save it as grails-app/conf/logback-grails.groovy:

// File: grails-app/conf/logback-grails.groovy
import grails.util.BuildSettings
import grails.util.Environment

import org.springframework.boot.ApplicationPid

import java.nio.charset.Charset

// Log information about the configuration.
statusListener(OnConsoleStatusListener)

// Get PID for Grails application.
// We use it in the logging output.
if (!System.getProperty("PID")) {
    System.setProperty("PID", (new ApplicationPid()).toString())
}

conversionRule 'clr', org.springframework.boot.logging.logback.ColorConverter
conversionRule 'wex', org.springframework.boot.logging.logback.WhitespaceThrowableProxyConverter

// See http://logback.qos.ch/manual/groovy.html for details on configuration
appender('STDOUT', ConsoleAppender) {
    encoder(PatternLayoutEncoder) {
        charset = Charset.forName('UTF-8')
        pattern =
                '%clr(%d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS}){faint} ' + // Date
                        '%clr(%5p) ' + // Log level
                        '%clr(%property{PID}){magenta} ' + // PID
                        '%clr(---){faint} %clr([%15.15t]){faint} ' + // Thread
                        '%clr(%-40.40logger{39}){cyan} %clr(:){faint} ' + // Logger
                        '%m%n%wex' // Message
    }
}

root(WARN, ['STDOUT'])

if(Environment.current == Environment.DEVELOPMENT) {
    root(INFO, ['STDOUT'])

    def targetDir = BuildSettings.TARGET_DIR
    if(targetDir) {

        appender("FULL_STACKTRACE", FileAppender) {

            file = "${targetDir}/stacktrace.log"
            append = true
            encoder(PatternLayoutEncoder) {
                pattern = "%level %logger - %msg%n"
            }
        }
        logger("StackTrace", ERROR, ['FULL_STACKTRACE'], false )
    }
}

We use this configuration file with the following command:

$ LOGGING_CONFIG=classpath:logback-grails.groovy grails run-app
...
2015-09-28 16:52:38.758  INFO 26895 --- [           main] o.a.c.c.C.[Tomcat].[localhost].[/]       : Initializing Spring FrameworkServlet 'grailsDispatcherServlet'
2015-09-28 16:52:38.758  INFO 26895 --- [           main] o.g.w.s.mvc.GrailsDispatcherServlet      : FrameworkServlet 'grailsDispatcherServlet': initialization started
2015-09-28 16:52:38.769  INFO 26895 --- [           main] o.g.w.s.mvc.GrailsDispatcherServlet      : FrameworkServlet 'grailsDispatcherServlet': initialization completed in 11 ms
2015-09-28 16:52:38.769  INFO 26895 --- [           main] s.b.c.e.t.TomcatEmbeddedServletContainer : Tomcat started on port(s): 8080 (http)
...

Written with Grails 3.0.8.