Daniel, Thanks for taking a look at this. I'd like to disagree with the reasoning here. First, it isn't just JDKs 7 and 8 - the behavior is the same all the way back to JDK 1.4, when the java.util.logging API was introduced. So changes affect 15 years' worth of logging configuration files. For example, there are no fewer than 350 instances of this pattern in our codebase. Imagine multiplying that across the entire world - everyone who is doing this has to change their configuration. That's a pretty big cost to introduce on the developer community. This is worse on legacy systems, because the handlers property was broken for a long time, and people basically had to use .handlers: http://bugs.java.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6207335. Second, it is inconsistent for ".level" to work for level for the root logger, and ".handlers" not to work for handlers for the root logger. The empty string represents the root logger, and having it only represent the root logger sometimes is (to me) counterintuitive. Without checking, my suspicion is that .level behaves the same way as .handlers (that is, it is only loaded once). If we can live with the inconsistency there, we can live with it here. You can even document that that is the difference. Jeremy On Fri, Nov 10, 2017 at 8:04 AM, Daniel Fuchs <daniel.fuchs@oracle.com> wrote:
Hi Jason,
I have done a few tests with JDK 8 & 7.
I have created custom handlers and added some debug traces in their constructors and debug methods.
Then I have added these two lines to my logging.properties:
handlers = custom.Handler .handlers = custom.DotHandler
What I see is this:
- the first time the configuration is read, two handlers are added to the root logger: - an instance of DotHandler (first), then an instance of Handler (second).
Then if you call LogManager.readConfiguration() again, both handlers are closed, and this time only one instance of Handler is added to the root logger. No instance of DotHandler is added. From now on the property is ignored.
This is because the root logger is a special beast: it will not be removed (like all other loggers) when LogManager.readConfiguration() is called.
And as it happens, handlers are added to loggers when the loggers are added to the LogManager. As it happens, the ".handlers" property is only parsed and read when the root logger is added to the LogManager, and thus only once.
The "handlers" property on the other hand is parsed every time LogManager.readConfiguration() is called.
Given that, I suspect we should deprecate the use of ".handlers" for the root logger, as it appears that it has never worked properly. I could work on a patch for 10 (possibly backport it to 9 update) to preserve the strange behavior of 7 & 8, but is it worth it?
What are your thoughts?
best regards,
-- daniel
On 09/11/2017 19:50, Jason Mehrens wrote:
Daniel,
I would assume you would fix since it is advertised as a feature over here: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/guide/logging/ changes.html
If it helps, I've dug up a lot of the history on this over here a while back: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36726431/in-a-java-util- logging-logging-properties-file-whats-the-difference-between-h
I've updated that to include the links to this new issue. Now that I've linked this message thread to that message thread that should crash the internet. :)
Jason
________________________________________ From: core-libs-dev <core-libs-dev-bounces@openjdk.java.net> on behalf of Daniel Fuchs <daniel.fuchs@oracle.com> Sent: Thursday, November 9, 2017 1:29 PM To: mandy chung Cc: core-libs-dev@openjdk.java.net Subject: Re: Change in properties for logging: deliberate?
On 09/11/2017 19:16, mandy chung wrote:
Daniel - we should add this known issue in the release note and document the workaround.
Hi Mandy,
Right, it either need to be fixed, or documented in the release notes. Let me first have a look at the issue though.
best regards,
-- daniel