Spring boot + Groovy + logback.groovy

Question

I am mixing Groovy and Java in my Spring-boot application. Rest controllers and data access is written in Groovy. Configurations are mainly in Java.

As per logback documentation, if there is a logback.groovy file in the classpath, it's supposed to be picked ahead of logback.xml. However only logback.xml is working in my case.

I am running the app as sprint-boot-application.

Also, it's worth noting that spring suggest to inherit some of the logging configuration like shown below

<configuration>
    <include resource="org/springframework/boot/logging/logback/base.xml"/>
    <logger name="org.springframework.web" level="DEBUG"/>
</configuration>

There is no way to do this in Groovy config.

build.gradle:

dependencies {
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web")
    compile("org.springframework:spring-jdbc")
    compile("com.h2database:h2")
    compile("org.hsqldb:hsqldb")
    testCompile("junit:junit")
    compile('org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:2.3.10')
    testCompile('org.codehaus.groovy.modules.http-builder:http-builder:0.5.0-RC2')
    compile('org.slf4j:slf4j-simple:1.6.1')
}

sourceSets {
    main {
        groovy {
            srcDirs = ['src/main/groovy', 'src/main/java'] 
        }
        java {
            srcDirs = []
        }
    }
    test {
        groovy {
            srcDirs = ['src/test/groovy', 'src/test/java']
        }
        java {
            srcDirs = []
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

First, your build.gradle looks strange to me:

• you don't include the spring-boot-gradle-plugin
• in your sourceSets options you define settings which are the default values of the Groovy plugin, see Project layout
• Note: even if you mix java and groovy files you don't have to separate them (you can if you want). I usally keep them both in the groovy directory.
• in your dependencies section you are using simple dependencies instead of Spring Boot starters (see also the reference doc )
• You have 2 DB dependencies (H2 and HSQL)

Try to create a sample project with Spring Initializr - switch to full version. Your build.gradle would look like

buildscript {
    ext {
        springBootVersion = '1.5.1.RELEASE'
    }
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}")
    }
}

apply plugin: 'groovy'
apply plugin: 'org.springframework.boot'

jar {
    baseName = 'demo'
    version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'
}

sourceCompatibility = 1.8

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter'
    compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-logging'
    compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-jdbc'
    compile 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy'
    compile 'com.h2database:h2'

    testCompile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test'
    testCompile 'org.codehaus.groovy.modules.http-builder:http-builder:0.5.0-RC2'
}

With this configuration logback.groovy should work. For specific problems just post your logback.groovy . But as you have noted, the Groovy config is not a full citizen. When you include the spring-boot-starter-logging starter you can also extend the standard logging config with logback-spring.groovy or logback-spring.xml .

For full control you have to use the XML config and for small projects I stopped using logback.groovy and instead just config the logging starter via some settings in the application.properties , see Custom log configuration .

Eg some settings for application.properties with logs with colored columns (all platforms except windows < 10 and in IDEA even under windows < 10):

logging.file = logs/jira.log
spring.output.ansi.enabled = DETECT
logging.level.root = INFO
logging.level.org.apache.http = WARN