log4j writing to a file

[Alan Shiers]

Hi Guys,

I'm trying to use log4j to write to a file for my web application. My web.xml file contains the following:

<servlet>
<servlet-name>log4j-init</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>com.tacticalenterprisesltd.Log4jInit</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>log4j-init-file</param-name>
<param-value>WEB-INF\properties\log4j_FILE.properties</param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>log4j-init</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/log4j-init/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

My servlet Log4jInit looks like this:

package com.tacticalenterprisesltd;

import org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator;
import javax.servlet.http.*;


public class Log4jInit extends HttpServlet
{
  public void init()
  {
	  try{
	  String prefix = getServletContext().getRealPath("/");
	  String file = getInitParameter("log4j-init-file");
	  if(file != null)
	  {
		  System.out.println("Log4jInit.init - prefix + file: " + prefix + file);
		  PropertyConfigurator.configure(prefix + file);		  
	  }
	  }
	  catch(Exception e){e.printStackTrace();}
  }
  
  public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res){}
}

My properties file looks like this:

# Define the root logger with appender file
log4j.rootLogger = DEBUG, FILE

# Define the file appender
log4j.appender.FILE=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
# Set the name of the file
log4j.appender.FILE.File=C:\\logs\\myLog.txt

# Set the immediate flush to true (default)
log4j.appender.FILE.ImmediateFlush=true

# Set the threshold to debug mode
log4j.appender.FILE.Threshold=debug

# Set the append to false, should not overwrite
log4j.appender.FILE.Append=true

# Set the maximum file size before rollover
log4j.appender.FILE.MaxFileSize=5KB

# Set the the backup index
log4j.appender.FILE.MaxBackupIndex=2

# Define the layout for file appender
log4j.appender.FILE.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.FILE.layout.conversionPattern=%m%n

As you can see, I'm telling log4j to write to a file at C:\logs\myLog.txt Pretty straight forward right. Well, it doesn't seem to think so since it isn't writing to the file at all. I have another properties file which tells log4j to print to the console. It doesn't seem to have a problem with that one. Could someone please advise as to what might be going wrong. Any help will be appreciated.

Alan