java - Initializing Log4J with Spring?

Question

I have a web app that uses Spring's Log4jConfigurer class to initialize my Log4J log factory. Basically it initializes Log4J with a config file that is off the class path.

Here is the config:

<bean id="log4jInitializer" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean" depends-on="sbeHome">
    <property name="targetClass" value="org.springframework.util.Log4jConfigurer" />
    <property name="targetMethod" value="initLogging" />
    <property name="arguments">
        <list>
            <value>#{ MyAppHome + '/conf/log4j.xml'}</value>
        </list>
    </property>
</bean>

However I get this error at application startup:

log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger

and tons of Spring application context initialization messages are printed to the console. I think this is because Spring is doing work to initialize my application before it has a chance to initialize my logger. In case it matters, I am using SLF4J on top of Log4J.

Is there some way I can get my Log4jConfigurer to be the first bean initialized? or is there some other way to solve this?

Answer 1

You could configure your Log4j listener in the web.xml instead of the spring-context.xml

<context-param>
    <param-name>log4jConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.web.properties</param-value>
</context-param>

<listener>
    <listener-class>org.springframework.web.util.Log4jConfigListener</listener-class>
</listener>

So it is up before Spring starts.