org.apache.log4j.chainsaw

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org.apache.log4j.chainsaw

ControlPanel	Represents the controls for filtering, pausing, exiting, etc.	code \| html
DetailPanel	A panel for showing a stack trace.	code \| html
EventDetails	Represents the details of a logging event.	code \| html
ExitAction	Encapsulates the action to exit.	code \| html
LoadXMLAction	Encapsulates the action to load an XML file.	code \| html
LoggingReceiver	A daemon thread the processes connections from a `org.apache.log4j.net.SocketAppender.html`.	code \| html
LoggingReceiver.Slurper	Helper that actually processes a client connection.	code \| html
Main	The main application.	code \| html
MyTableModel	Represents a list of `EventDetails` objects that are sorted on logging time.	code \| html
MyTableModel.Processor	Helper that actually processes incoming events.	code \| html
XMLFileHandler	A content handler for document containing Log4J events logged using the XMLLayout class.	code \| html

Chainsaw is a GUI log viewer and filter for the log4j package. By default it listens for LoggingEvent objects sent using the SocketAppender and displays them in a table. The events can be filtered based on:

Level
Thread name
Logger
Message
NDC

All the details for each event can be displayed by selecting the event in the table.

Chainsaw also supports loading a events logged to a file using the XMLLayout format. This is great for analysing log files, and means you do not need to keep Chainsaw running continously. It is easy to add support for loading events from other sources like JDBC.

A picture is worth a thousand words:

Finally, why is it called chainsaw? Because it cuts your log (file) down to size. :-)

Requirements

Chainsaw is based on the Swing API which requires JDK 1.2 or later.

Running chainsaw

Setup

You need to include the log4j.jar in the classpath.

Usage

The command line usage is:

  java -D<property>=<value> org.apache.log4j.chainsaw.Main

The default behaviour of chainsaw can be changed by setting system properties using the -D<property>=<value> arguments to java. The following table describes what properties can be set:

Property	Description
chainsaw.port	Indicates which port to listen for connections on. Defaults to "4445".

Configuring Log4J

You will need to configure log4j to send logging events to Chainsaw. Here is a sample log4j.properties file for sending logging events to Chainsaw.

log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, CHAINSAW_CLIENT

log4j.appender.CHAINSAW_CLIENT=org.apache.log4j.net.SocketAppender
log4j.appender.CHAINSAW_CLIENT.RemoteHost=localhost
log4j.appender.CHAINSAW_CLIENT.Port=4445
log4j.appender.CHAINSAW_CLIENT.LocationInfo=true