src/xdocs/plan.xml - logging-log4j1 - Git at Google

 <?xml version="1.0"?>
 <document>

   <properties>
     <author email="ceki@apache.org">Ceki Gulcu</author>
     <title>Release plan for log4j 1.3</title>
   </properties>

   <body>

     <section name="Plan? What plan?">

       <p>The following paragragh was adapted from the <a
 	  href="http://jakarta.apache.org/cactus/todo.html">Cactus
 	  project's roadmap</a> with the author's permission.
       </p>

       <p>Our users keep inventing better ways and adding new
 	requirements. The downside is that our todo list keeps
 	growing. The upside is that there is plenty of work to go
 	around. If you are interested in participating, send an email
 	on the log4j-dev@ mailing list stating your interest. You'll
 	be promptly enrolled. We're always looking for help!  Don't be
 	put off if in the "Volunteer" column already has a person
 	listed. Programming is fun, especially if it is done in a
 	team.
       </p>

       <p>

       </p>


     </section>

     <section name="Workplan for log4j 1.3">

       <p>The workplan for log4j 1.3 is not final. It is included here
 	to give you an idea of the future. The items are not listed in
 	any particular order.  As always, there is no scheduled
 	release date. The lack of schedule suprises and disturbs some
 	people. Writing good software, like good cooking, takes
 	time. If we make you wait, it is to create a better and more
 	reliable product.
       </p>

       <table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="2">

 	<tr>
 	  <th>Label</th>
 	  <th>Comment</th>
 	  <th>Volunteer</th>
 	  <th>Status</th>
 	</tr>

 	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
 	  <td><b>test cases</b></td>

 	  <td>
 	    <p>Writing test cases is not the most sexy part of
 	      software development but it is one of the most
 	      important.  Automated test cases allow us to catch bugs
 	      as early is possible.  It is strongly recommended to add
 	      a new test case with each new feature or component.</p>

 	    <p>Existing <em>Perl</em> language based test cases are
 	      gradually being migrated to junit (all-Java)based test
 	      cases.  The new tests are placed under the
 	      <code>tests/</code> directory.  It should be thus
 	      possible for participants in the project to understand
 	      the stucture of our tests and add tests for their
 	      components.
 	    </p>
 	  </td>

 	  <td>All committers</td>
 	  <td>ongoing effort</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Extensible XML configuration files</td>

 	  <td>
 	     <p>The DOMConfigurator is complex and not very
 	      flexible. It can only deal with elements that the
 	      developer knew about at compilation time. This has been
 	      an important drawback in the design of several appenders
 	      such as the the SMTPAppender and the
 	      RollingFileAppenders and its variants.  These appenders
 	      need to delegate certain task to sub-components which
 	      are configured separately.
 	    </p>

 	    <p>The support for extensible configuration files will be
 	    based on the code in commons-digester authored by Craig
 	    McClanahan and Scott Sanders. They graciously granted
 	    permission for the modification of their code and its
 	    inclusion in log4j.</p>
 	  </td>
 	  <td>Ceki</td>
 	  <td>design board</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Log4j Domains</td>

 	  <td>
 	    <p>This is a very powerful and innovative concept that
 	    extends the notion of hierarchical loggers. It will also
 	    allow dynamic logging with pin-point accuracy. It was
 	    first suggested to me by Scott Stark of <a
 	    href="http://www.jboss.org">JBoss</a> fame.
 	    </p>
 	  </td>
 	  <td>Ceki</td>
 	  <td>design board</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Multiple implementations of Logger</td>

 	  <td>
 	    <p>Based on <code>RepositorySelectors</code> introduced in
 	      log4j 1.2, the user will be able to replace the
 	      <code>Logger</code> implementation. Several
 	      implementations will be provided offering different
 	      properties and functionality although none of the
 	      implementations will add new public methods.
 	    </p>
 	  </td>


 	  <td>?</td>
 	  <td>vaporware</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Improvements to Chainsaw</td>

 	  <td>
 	    <p>Visualisation and dynamic filtering of logging event is
 	      bound to be a very important area of activity in the
 	      future. A number of important improvements to chainsaw
 	      have been suggested.
 	    </p>

 	  </td>
 	  <td>Oliver Burn</td>
 	  <td>under discusison</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Custom conversion characters in PatternLayout</td>
 	  <td>Users often want to add new conversions characters or
 	  override the existing ones. This should be made easy using
 	  new configuration directives. This feature would use the
 	  extensions to XML configuration language mentioned
 	  above.</td>

 	  <td>?</td>
 	  <td>not started</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Overture to other programming languages</td>

 	  <td>It is higly desriable to allow log4j ports in other languages
 	    to access log4j services in a language independent way.
 	  </td>

 	  <td>?</td>
 	  <td>not started</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Strategy based rollovers</td>

 	  <td>
 	    <p>Contrary to our own DailyRollingFileAppender, Avalon's
 	      logkit has a nice and clean implementation for rolling
 	      files. See the
 	      <code>org.apache.log.output.io.rotate</code> package for
 	      exact details.
 	    </p>

 	    <p>Their implementation is based on strategies which are
 	    sub-components of appender. We will be able to configure
 	    such sub-components with the new XML configuration
 	    scripts.
 	    </p>
 	  </td>
 	  <td>Kevin Steppe</td>
 	  <td>not started</td>
 	</tr>


 	<tr>
 	  <td>Redesign of configure and watch architecture in
 	  configurators</td>

 	  <td>This is a very useful feature and the current architecture is not very good.

 	    <p>Contributions have been received by Mark Womack and others.</p>

 	    <p>See
 	      <pre>
      http://www.mail-archive.com/log4j-dev@jakarta.apache.org/msg01390.html
      http://www.mail-archive.com/log4j-user@jakarta.apache.org/msg00666.html
      http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=101010070500002&amp;r=1&amp;w=2
               </pre>
 	    </p>
 	  </td>
 	  <td>Mark Womack</td>
 	  <td>initial implementation</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Performance improvements to LoggingEvent serialization</td>

 	  <td>
 	    <p>Ole Dalgaard has shown that by implementing the
 	      java.io.Externalizable interface instead of
 	      java.io.Serializable in the LoggingEvent class, the
 	      speed of serialiazation is increased by a factor of 4 or
 	      more.
 	    </p>

 	  </td>
 	  <td>Ole Dalgaard?</td>
 	  <td>initial implementation</td>
 	</tr>
       </table>
     </section>


     <section name="Workplan for log4j 1.2">
       <p>
 	Here is workplan for the 1.2 release.
       </p>

       <table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="2">

 	<tr>
 	  <th>Label</th>
 	  <th>Comment</th>
 	  <th>Volunteer</th>
 	  <th>Status</th>
 	</tr>

 	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
 	  <td>More test cases</td>

 	  <td>We need more automated test cases to catch bugs as early
 	    is possible.It is highly recommended to add a new test case
 	    with each new feature or component.</td>

 	  <td>All committers</td>
 	  <td>ongoing effort</td>
 	</tr>


 	<tr>
 	  <td>Removal of deprecated methods</td>

 	  <td>Deprecated <code>setOption</code> and <code>getOption</code>
 	    methods in appender and layouts should be removed.</td>

 	  <td>Ceki</td>
 	  <td>done</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
 	  <td>JDBCAppender</td>

 	  <td>
 	    <p>We currently have two competing JDBCAppenders: one by
 	    Thomas Fenner and the other by Kevin Steppe.</p>

 	    <p>Kevin Steppe stood up and did it.</p>
 	    </td>

 	  <td>Kevin Steppe</td>

 	  <td>done</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>Log4j in applets</td>

 	  <td>In order to minimize network traffic, the size of log4j-core.jar
 	    needs to be reduced to at most 50KB.

 	    <p>Log4jME has been released. It's less than 20KB.</p>
 	  </td>

 	  <td>Ceki</td>
 	  <td>done</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr  bgcolor="DDDDDD">
 	  <td>Improved documentation</td>

 	  <td>Log4j documentation needs to be enhanced with configuration
 	    examples and much more hand-holding.</td>

 	  <td>Ceki</td>

 	  <td>ongoing effort</td>

 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td valign="top">Mapped Diagnostic Contexts</td>

 	  <td>Mapped Diagnostic Contexts are similar to the NDC
 	    except that the MDC is a string to string map instead of
 	    a stack that the user sets when entering a special
 	    context. The <code>PatternLayout</code> has to be
 	    enhanced to support this by extending the %x pattern to
 	    accept an argument.  Here is an example:

 	    <pre>
     ConversionPattern=3D%d %p %c %x{server} %x{host} - %m%n
 	    </pre>

 	    User code:
 	    <pre>
     {
        MDC.put("server", "totoServer");
        MDC.put("host", "someHost");

        logger.debug("Hello");

     }
 </pre>
       will print:
       <pre>2000-01-24 10:00:00,000 DEBUG totoServer someHost - Hello</pre>

 	    <p>To make MDCs truly user friendly
 	      <code>ThreadLocal</code> variables are required. This
 	      will allow the MDC to be inherited by child
 	      threads. <code>ThreadLocal</code> are only supported
 	      under JDK 1.2 and above. In JDK 1.1, the MDC will not
 	      work but won't harm the user application either.</p>
 	      </td>
 	  <td>Ceki</td>
 	  <td>done</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
 	  <td>Enhanced variable substitution support in DOMConfigurator</td>
 	  <td></td>

 	  <td>Ceki</td>
 	  <td>done</td>
 	</tr>

 	<tr>
 	  <td>FallbackErrorHandler</td>

 	  <td>The FallbackErrorHandler implements the ErrorHandler
 	    interface such that a secondary appender may be
 	    specified. This secondary appender takes over if the primary
 	    appender fails for whatever reason.

 	    <p>The DOMConfigurator needs to be extended to support the
 	      FallbackErrorHandler</p>

 	  </td>
 	  <td>Ceki</td>
 	  <td>implemented, requires further testing</td>
 	</tr>


 	<tr>
 	  <td>Ensure backward compatibility of LoggingEvent
 	  objects</td>

 	  <td>To avoid deployment problems we must ensure that
 	  LoggingEvent objects are compatible between 1.2 and 1.1.3.

 	    <p>Robert Bushman has proposed a very innovative way for
 	    solving this problem. See <a
 	    href="http://www.mail-archive.com/log4j-dev@jakarta.apache.org/msg01397.html">
 	    http://www.mail-archive.com/log4j-dev@jakarta.apache.org/msg01397.html</a>
 	    for further details.
 	    </p>
 	  </td>

 	  <td>Ceki</td>
 	  <td>implemented, manually tested, requires automated test cases</td>
 	</tr>
       </table>
     </section>

   </body>

 </document>
	<?xml version="1.0"?>
	<document>

	<properties>
	<author email="ceki@apache.org">Ceki Gulcu</author>
	<title>Release plan for log4j 1.3</title>
	</properties>

	<body>

	<section name="Plan? What plan?">

	<p>The following paragragh was adapted from the <a
	href="http://jakarta.apache.org/cactus/todo.html">Cactus
	project's roadmap</a> with the author's permission.
	</p>

	<p>Our users keep inventing better ways and adding new
	requirements. The downside is that our todo list keeps
	growing. The upside is that there is plenty of work to go
	around. If you are interested in participating, send an email
	on the log4j-dev@ mailing list stating your interest. You'll
	be promptly enrolled. We're always looking for help! Don't be
	put off if in the "Volunteer" column already has a person
	listed. Programming is fun, especially if it is done in a
	team.
	</p>

	<p>

	</p>


	</section>

	<section name="Workplan for log4j 1.3">

	<p>The workplan for log4j 1.3 is not final. It is included here
	to give you an idea of the future. The items are not listed in
	any particular order. As always, there is no scheduled
	release date. The lack of schedule suprises and disturbs some
	people. Writing good software, like good cooking, takes
	time. If we make you wait, it is to create a better and more
	reliable product.
	</p>

	<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="2">

	<tr>
	<th>Label</th>
	<th>Comment</th>
	<th>Volunteer</th>
	<th>Status</th>
	</tr>

	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
	<td><b>test cases</b></td>

	<td>
	<p>Writing test cases is not the most sexy part of
	software development but it is one of the most
	important. Automated test cases allow us to catch bugs
	as early is possible. It is strongly recommended to add
	a new test case with each new feature or component.</p>

	<p>Existing <em>Perl</em> language based test cases are
	gradually being migrated to junit (all-Java)based test
	cases. The new tests are placed under the
	<code>tests/</code> directory. It should be thus
	possible for participants in the project to understand
	the stucture of our tests and add tests for their
	components.
	</p>
	</td>

	<td>All committers</td>
	<td>ongoing effort</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Extensible XML configuration files</td>

	<td>
	<p>The DOMConfigurator is complex and not very
	flexible. It can only deal with elements that the
	developer knew about at compilation time. This has been
	an important drawback in the design of several appenders
	such as the the SMTPAppender and the
	RollingFileAppenders and its variants. These appenders
	need to delegate certain task to sub-components which
	are configured separately.
	</p>

	<p>The support for extensible configuration files will be
	based on the code in commons-digester authored by Craig
	McClanahan and Scott Sanders. They graciously granted
	permission for the modification of their code and its
	inclusion in log4j.</p>
	</td>
	<td>Ceki</td>
	<td>design board</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Log4j Domains</td>

	<td>
	<p>This is a very powerful and innovative concept that
	extends the notion of hierarchical loggers. It will also
	allow dynamic logging with pin-point accuracy. It was
	first suggested to me by Scott Stark of <a
	href="http://www.jboss.org">JBoss</a> fame.
	</p>
	</td>
	<td>Ceki</td>
	<td>design board</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Multiple implementations of Logger</td>

	<td>
	<p>Based on <code>RepositorySelectors</code> introduced in
	log4j 1.2, the user will be able to replace the
	<code>Logger</code> implementation. Several
	implementations will be provided offering different
	properties and functionality although none of the
	implementations will add new public methods.
	</p>
	</td>


	<td>?</td>
	<td>vaporware</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Improvements to Chainsaw</td>

	<td>
	<p>Visualisation and dynamic filtering of logging event is
	bound to be a very important area of activity in the
	future. A number of important improvements to chainsaw
	have been suggested.
	</p>

	</td>
	<td>Oliver Burn</td>
	<td>under discusison</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Custom conversion characters in PatternLayout</td>
	<td>Users often want to add new conversions characters or
	override the existing ones. This should be made easy using
	new configuration directives. This feature would use the
	extensions to XML configuration language mentioned
	above.</td>

	<td>?</td>
	<td>not started</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Overture to other programming languages</td>

	<td>It is higly desriable to allow log4j ports in other languages
	to access log4j services in a language independent way.
	</td>

	<td>?</td>
	<td>not started</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Strategy based rollovers</td>

	<td>
	<p>Contrary to our own DailyRollingFileAppender, Avalon's
	logkit has a nice and clean implementation for rolling
	files. See the
	<code>org.apache.log.output.io.rotate</code> package for
	exact details.
	</p>

	<p>Their implementation is based on strategies which are
	sub-components of appender. We will be able to configure
	such sub-components with the new XML configuration
	scripts.
	</p>
	</td>
	<td>Kevin Steppe</td>
	<td>not started</td>
	</tr>



	<tr>
	<td>Redesign of configure and watch architecture in
	configurators</td>

	<td>This is a very useful feature and the current architecture is not very good.

	<p>Contributions have been received by Mark Womack and others.</p>

	<p>See
	<pre>
	http://www.mail-archive.com/log4j-dev@jakarta.apache.org/msg01390.html
	http://www.mail-archive.com/log4j-user@jakarta.apache.org/msg00666.html
	http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=101010070500002&r=1&w=2
	</pre>
	</p>
	</td>
	<td>Mark Womack</td>
	<td>initial implementation</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Performance improvements to LoggingEvent serialization</td>

	<td>
	<p>Ole Dalgaard has shown that by implementing the
	java.io.Externalizable interface instead of
	java.io.Serializable in the LoggingEvent class, the
	speed of serialiazation is increased by a factor of 4 or
	more.
	</p>

	</td>
	<td>Ole Dalgaard?</td>
	<td>initial implementation</td>
	</tr>
	</table>
	</section>



	<section name="Workplan for log4j 1.2">
	<p>
	Here is workplan for the 1.2 release.
	</p>

	<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="2">

	<tr>
	<th>Label</th>
	<th>Comment</th>
	<th>Volunteer</th>
	<th>Status</th>
	</tr>

	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
	<td>More test cases</td>

	<td>We need more automated test cases to catch bugs as early
	is possible.It is highly recommended to add a new test case
	with each new feature or component.</td>

	<td>All committers</td>
	<td>ongoing effort</td>
	</tr>


	<tr>
	<td>Removal of deprecated methods</td>

	<td>Deprecated <code>setOption</code> and <code>getOption</code>
	methods in appender and layouts should be removed.</td>

	<td>Ceki</td>
	<td>done</td>
	</tr>

	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
	<td>JDBCAppender</td>

	<td>
	<p>We currently have two competing JDBCAppenders: one by
	Thomas Fenner and the other by Kevin Steppe.</p>

	<p>Kevin Steppe stood up and did it.</p>
	</td>

	<td>Kevin Steppe</td>

	<td>done</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>Log4j in applets</td>

	<td>In order to minimize network traffic, the size of log4j-core.jar
	needs to be reduced to at most 50KB.

	<p>Log4jME has been released. It's less than 20KB.</p>
	</td>

	<td>Ceki</td>
	<td>done</td>
	</tr>

	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
	<td>Improved documentation</td>

	<td>Log4j documentation needs to be enhanced with configuration
	examples and much more hand-holding.</td>

	<td>Ceki</td>

	<td>ongoing effort</td>

	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td valign="top">Mapped Diagnostic Contexts</td>

	<td>Mapped Diagnostic Contexts are similar to the NDC
	except that the MDC is a string to string map instead of
	a stack that the user sets when entering a special
	context. The <code>PatternLayout</code> has to be
	enhanced to support this by extending the %x pattern to
	accept an argument. Here is an example:

	<pre>
	ConversionPattern=3D%d %p %c %x{server} %x{host} - %m%n
	</pre>

	User code:
	<pre>
	{
	MDC.put("server", "totoServer");
	MDC.put("host", "someHost");

	logger.debug("Hello");

	}
	</pre>
	will print:
	<pre>2000-01-24 10:00:00,000 DEBUG totoServer someHost - Hello</pre>

	<p>To make MDCs truly user friendly
	<code>ThreadLocal</code> variables are required. This
	will allow the MDC to be inherited by child
	threads. <code>ThreadLocal</code> are only supported
	under JDK 1.2 and above. In JDK 1.1, the MDC will not
	work but won't harm the user application either.</p>
	</td>
	<td>Ceki</td>
	<td>done</td>
	</tr>

	<tr bgcolor="DDDDDD">
	<td>Enhanced variable substitution support in DOMConfigurator</td>
	<td></td>

	<td>Ceki</td>
	<td>done</td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td>FallbackErrorHandler</td>

	<td>The FallbackErrorHandler implements the ErrorHandler
	interface such that a secondary appender may be
	specified. This secondary appender takes over if the primary
	appender fails for whatever reason.

	<p>The DOMConfigurator needs to be extended to support the
	FallbackErrorHandler</p>

	</td>
	<td>Ceki</td>
	<td>implemented, requires further testing</td>
	</tr>


	<tr>
	<td>Ensure backward compatibility of LoggingEvent
	objects</td>

	<td>To avoid deployment problems we must ensure that
	LoggingEvent objects are compatible between 1.2 and 1.1.3.

	<p>Robert Bushman has proposed a very innovative way for
	solving this problem. See <a
	href="http://www.mail-archive.com/log4j-dev@jakarta.apache.org/msg01397.html">
	http://www.mail-archive.com/log4j-dev@jakarta.apache.org/msg01397.html</a>
	for further details.
	</p>
	</td>

	<td>Ceki</td>
	<td>implemented, manually tested, requires automated test cases</td>
	</tr>
	</table>
	</section>

	</body>

	</document>