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We are looking to use SLF4J, but one thing we found was that you can't specify the level as an argument, i.e

Logger.log(Level.INFO, "messsage"); 

You have to do this

logger.info("message"); 

this prevents being able to pass everything through a method, so you can tack other properties to all log messages in a class.

public class Test { public Test(SomeObj obj) { log(Level.INFO, "message"); } public void anotherMethod() { log(Level.DEBUG, "another message"); } private void log(Level level, String message) { logger.log(level, message + obj.someString()); } } 

Is there a way to achieve this using SLF4j ?

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  • 2
    pass string "INFO" and "DEBUG", and use reflection to invoke the correct method - just kidding! Commented Sep 30, 2010 at 16:25
  • 1
    Indeed it is very shortsighted and regretful that most (probably all) contemporary loggers still follow that archaic paradigm Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 12:55

4 Answers 4

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Write a wrapper around the slf4j call and create your own enum for the six log levels. Then in your wrapper, use a switch to call the correct slf4j call.

void myLog(Level level, String message) { switch (level) { case FATAL: log.fatal(message); break; case ERROR: log.error(message); break; .... } } 
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1 Comment

How is there not a log(Level level, ...) method?
7

The answer is No. Refer to this discussion.

1 Comment

There is a way to do it, but it involves getting a handle to the native logger that slf4j found. -- see my answer below.
3

Your usecase screams for the delegation pattern. Basically you wedge your own implementation of Logger between your code and SLF4J and "extend" the relevant methods:

class MyLogger implements Logger { Logger realLogger; Object userData; MyLogger(Class clazz, Object userData){ this.realLogger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(clazz); } public void debug(String msg) { realLogger.debug(msg + userData.someString()); } // many more methods, perhaps per java.lang.reflect.Proxy } 

This is use in the business code like this:

public class Test { Logger log; public Test(SomeObj obj) { log = new MyLogger(Test.class, obj); log.logInfo("message"); } public void anotherMethod() { logDebug("another message"); } } 

For optimal reusability of the MyLogger class SomeObj should either use Object.toString() or it should implement an interface which MyLogger can use to get the message addendum.

Comments

1

Well, technically SLF4J doesn't offer you a logger.log(Level, message) method. But I found a way around that. [edit: uses introspection]

Using the below code snippet you can get the native logger that slf4j found and wrapped for you at runtime. If you'll recall, slf4j is simply a wrapper around an slf4j implementation from another provider (either, jdkLogging, Log4J, JCL, etc...). So here:

public Object getNativeLogger( org.slf4j.Logger logger ) { Object result = null; if ( logger.getClass().getName().equals("org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerAdapter")) { try { Field f = Log4jLoggerAdapter.class.getDeclaredField("logger"); f.setAccessible( true ); result = (org.apache.log4j.Logger)f.get(logger); } catch( Exception e ) { System.out.println("Unable to access native log4j logger"); } } else if ( logger.getClass().getName().equals("org.slf4j.impl.JDK14LoggerAdapter")) { try { Field f = Jdk14Logger.class.getDeclaredField("logger"); f.setAccessible( true ); result = (Jdk14Logger)f.get(logger); } catch( Exception e ) { System.out.println("Unable to access native log4j logger"); } } else if (..... other native loggers slf4j supports).... } return result; } 

Then you can use it like this:

 Object l = getNativeLogger(mySlf4jLogger); if ( l instanceof org.apache.log4j.Logger ) { org.apache.log4j.Logger logger = (org.apache.log4j.Logger) l; logger.log( CUSTOMLog4JLevel, message); } else if( .... other implementations that you care about ...)... 

So while it's not technically within slf4j, it is possible to do it using slf4j as your primary logging interface.

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