[logback-user] Programmatic logback Configuration

[Chad La Joie]

I have an application that ships with two logging configuration files;
a default logback.xml file (DLF) included in the application JAR and a 
user-editable file (UEF) installed on the filesystem with other 
application configuration files.  The DLF is used when the application 
is starting but before the code to read in the UEF is executed.

My current code for reading in the UEF looks like this:

LoggerContext loggerContext = (LoggerContext) 
LoggerFactory.getILoggerFactory();

loggerContext.shutdownAndReset();

JoranConfigurator configurator = new JoranConfigurator();

configurator.setContext(loggerContext);

configurator.doConfigure(configuration.getInputStream());

loggerContext.start();

The behavior I'm seeing though is note quite what I expected.  Assume 
the DLF contains a console appender and a logger definition for package 
"foo".  The behavior I see when the UEF is loaded is:

   - Changes to the logger FOO (e.g. changes in the logging level, 
addition/removal of appenders, etc.) are picked up and become active.

   - Declaration of new appenders are picked up and become active (e.g. 
if a new file appender is defined I can see it creating the new log file).

   - Declaration of new loggers are *not* picked up.  If, for example, a 
logger "bar" is defined and given the same console appender as "foo" no 
output from "bar" is sent to the console.

Is this expected behavior?  Is my code wrong (I've tried the same code 
without the start() or shutdownAndReset() method calls)?

Any help would be appreciated.

-- 
SWITCH
Serving Swiss Universities
--------------------------
Chad La Joie, Software Engineer, Security
Werdstrasse 2, P.O. Box, 8021 Zurich, Switzerland
phone +41 44 268 15 75, fax +41 44 268 15 68
chad.lajoie at switch.ch, http://www.switch.ch