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  • Feb 02, 2020
  • Post Nº 135

Logback: Test Logging Event

Capture SLF4J + Logback logging events and test them in unit tests using ListAppender.

Overview

In this article, I will explain how to capture Logback logging events and assert the captured results in unit tests. This article is written using Java 11, Logback 1.2.3, and SLF4J 1.7.30. In the next paragraphs, I will create a unit test for asserting my App which says hi by creating logging event:

package io.mincong.logback;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

public class App {

  private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(App.class);

  public static void sayHi(String username) {
    logger.info("Hi, {}!", username);
  }
}

Note that my application does not use Logback directly, it uses Simple Logging Facade for Java (SLF4J) and uses Logback as implementation behind the screen.

Dependency

If you are using Maven, you need the following dependencies for this example (test dependencies excluded):

<dependency>
  <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
  <artifactId>logback-core</artifactId>
  <version>1.2.3</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
  <artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
  <version>1.2.3</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
  <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
  <version>1.7.30</version>
</dependency>

Test

Here is the code for testing the logging events.

package io.mincong.logback;

import ch.qos.logback.classic.spi.ILoggingEvent;
import ch.qos.logback.core.read.ListAppender;
import ch.qos.logback.classic.Logger;
import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;

public class AppTest {

  private ListAppender<ILoggingEvent> appender;
  private Logger appLogger = (Logger) LoggerFactory.getLogger(App.class);

  @Before
  public void setUp() {
    appender = new ListAppender<>();
    appender.start();
    appLogger.addAppender(appender);
  }

  @After
  public void tearDown() {
    appLogger.detachAppender(appender);
  }

  @Test
  public void testSayHi() {
    App.sayHi("Java");
    App.sayHi("Logback");

    assertThat(appender.list)
        .extracting(ILoggingEvent::getFormattedMessage)
        .containsExactly("Hi, Java!", "Hi, Logback!");
  }
}

First of all, retrieve the logger under test via SLF4J logger factory and cast it into Logback logger (ch.qos.logback.classic.Logger). Doing so makes it possible to add list appender to the logger.

// org.slf4j.Logger => ch.qos.logback.classic.Logger
Logger appLogger = (Logger) LoggerFactory.getLogger(App.class);

Then, create a ListAppender which appends logging events (ILoggingEvent). Different from console appender or file appender, list appender appends the logging events only in memory and stores them into an array-list. This list appender needs to be registered to the logger under test appLogger:

appender = new ListAppender<>();
appender.start();
appLogger.addAppender(appender);

Once done, you can assert the logging events captured by the log appender. The most commonly used method is ILoggingEvent#getFormattedMessage, which returns the formatted messags. Formatted message are messages having variables injected into the placeholders of the original message. Other useful methods:

Method Description Example
ILoggingEvent#getMessage Get original message “Hi, {}!”
ILoggingEvent#getFormattedMessage Get formatted message “Hi, Java!”
ILoggingEvent#getLoggerName Get logger’s name “io.mincong.logback.App”
ILoggingEvent#getThrowableProxy Get cause -

The source code of the example above is available on GitHub.

Conclusion

This article covers the basics of asserting logging events under SLF4J and Logback. It can verify the correctness of your logging behavior. such as ensuring the log events are logged; logs are created with the right level; the cause is included; variables are injected into placeholder; … If you want to go further from here, I suggest the following resources for further reading:

  1. Stack Overflow: Other solutions about intercepting SLF4J with logback logging via a JUnit test
  2. Baeldung: A Guide to Logback

Interested to know more? You can subscribe to the feed of my blog, follow me on Twitter or GitHub. Hope you enjoy this article, see you the next time!

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