[logback-dev] Layout setter/getter methods in AppenderBase

[Ceki Gulcu]

Hi Maarteen,

I really like the idea of pluggable encoders. Putting UnsyncronizedAppenderBase 
aside for a second, I could imagine the following class hierarchy:

interface LayoutAware extends Appender;
interface EncoderAware extends Appender;
abstract class AppenderBase implements Appender;
abstract class LayoutAwareAppenderBase ext. AppenderBase implements LayoutAware;
abstract class EncodrAwareAppenderBase ext. AppenderBase implements LayoutAware;

class WriterAppender extends LayoutAwareAppenderBase;
class FileAppender extends WriterAppender;
...
class SocketAppender extends EncoderAwareAppenderBase;

Appenders such as DBAppender and SMTPAppender, where LoggingEvent to byte[] 
encoding nor layouts make sense, could extend AppenderBase directly.

We should pursue this....

Maarten Bosteels wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I agree with Joern, it would be cleaner to have a LayoutAware interface, 
> and only appenders that use a Layout should implement it.
> The way it is now, people can set a layout on the SocketAppender, they 
> don't get an exception, but the layout would never be used.
> 
> I can understand the "historical" reasons, but IMO things like this can 
> be changed as long as logback doesn't reach 1.0Maarten
> 
> Related idea/proposal:  an Encoder interface similar to Layout but 
> returning a byte array instead of a String:
> 
> public interface Encoder {
>   byte[] encode(LoggingEvent event)
> }
> 
> I recently worked on an AsyncSocketAppender (extending 
> UnsyncronizedAppenderBase) and with this interface the wire-format would 
> be pluggable.
> 
> Some wire-formats I am thinking about:  Apache Thrift, Google protobuf 
> and of course Java serialization.
> 
> I still have to implement these encoders and compare their perfomance.  
> I will let you know when I get there.
> 
> It would be really cool if we could define a wire-format based on 
> Protobuf and/or Thrift that could also be used for encoding log4j events.
> But I guess it would be better to do this in a separate project ...
> 
> regards,
> Maarten

-- 
Ceki Gülcü
Logback: The reliable, generic, fast and flexible logging framework for Java.
http://logback.qos.ch