The org.apache.commons.httpclient.log package
provides a simple abstraction of
log4j and
similiar logging frameworks.
Using this abstraction allows HTTP Client to seamlessly support log4j and other frameworks without introducing a run-time dependency on them.
Note: This package is likely to be revised or replaced in the near future in order to use the similiar abstraction being considered within Log4J itself.
Absent any specific configuration settings, this logging abstraction will provide the following behaviour:
org.apache.log4j.Category class is in
your classpath), then the
{@link org.apache.commons.httpclient.log.Log4JCategoryLog Log4JCategoryLog}
{@link org.apache.commons.httpclient.log.Log Log} implementation will
be used for logging. In this case you may use and configure the
HTTP Client logging in precisely the same way as any other
Log4J client. The log4j.properties.sample file in the
distribution provides an example of one such configuration.
One may (but need not) provide a Java system property named
httpclient.log that contains the full-specified name
of a class implementing {@link org.apache.commons.httpclient.log.Log Log}
in order to use an alternative logging framework.
{@link org.apache.commons.httpclient.log.SimpleLog SimpleLog} is
one such example, providing a subset of Log4J-like functionality, but
only to the standard output stream. See the
simplelog.properties.sample file in the distribution for
details on configuring the SimpleLog.