As you have probably read a few days ago we released LogBox: An enterprise ColdFusion Logging Library, part of the new ColdBox 3.0.0 Platform Suite. The library's core of logging takes place thanks to its appenders that send messages to different destinations. As of now, the distribution has 11 appenders included, but if you want to build your own, you can very very easily. Not only that, since we are in Beta, you can submit your appenders and we will include them in the distribution if they are cool! So here is a little tip and trick on building appenders:
Appender
An appender is an object that LogBox uses in order to log statements to a destination repository. All appenders act as destinations that can be from databases, JMS, Twitter, files, consoles, sockets, etc. Their job is to take the logged message and store it or send it somewhere. LogBox comes bundled with the following appenders that can be found in the package coldbox.system.logging.appenders:
| Appender | Description |
| AsyncFileAppender | An Asynchronous file appender |
| AsyncRollingFileAppender | An Asynchronous file appender that can do file rotation and archiving |
| CFAppender | Will deliver messages to the coldfusion logs |
| ConsoleAppender | Will deliver messages to the console via system.out |
| DBAppender | Will deliver messages to a database table. It can even auto create the table for you. |
| EmailAppender | Will deliver messages to any email address |
| FileAppender | Will deliver messages a file |
| RollingFileAppender | A file appender that can do file rotation and archiving |
| ScopeAppender | Will deliver messages to any ColdFusion scope you desire |
| SocketAppender | Will connect to any server socket and deliver messages |
| TwitterAppender | Can either send direct messages to a twitter user or update a status of a twitter user. |
You can define 1 or all of these appenders in LogBox at any point in time. You can even register as many instances of any appender by just naming them differently.
In order to create your own appenders, you will have to create a cfc that extends coldbox.system.logging.AbstractAppender and implement the following methods:
- init() : Your constructor
- logMessage() : The method that is called when a message is received
- onRegistration() : An interceptor that fires when the appender gets created and initialized. It can be used for preparing the appender for operation.
- onUnRegistration() : An interceptor that fires when the appender is removed from a logger.
So how easy is it, well take a look at this simple console appender.
// Init supertype
super.init(argumentCollection=arguments);
instance.out = createObject("java","java.lang.System").out;
return this;
var loge = arguments.logEvent;
var entry = "";
if( hasCustomLayout() ){
entry = getCustomLayout().format(loge);
}
else{
entry = "#severityToString(loge.getseverity())# #loge.getCategory()# #loge.getmessage()# ExtraInfo: #loge.getextraInfoAsString()#";
}
// Log message
instance.out.println(entry);
Add Your Comment
(2)
Jul 14, 2009 00:18:08 UTC
by Will B.
Does this use an interface? Heh. - WB
Jul 14, 2009 10:59:30 UTC
by Luis Majano
Heh!! Acutally it is an abstract class as functionality needed to be passed down and also, needed to be cf7 compatible (YUCK!!) Adobe, please discountinue support for cf7