Configuring Maven to use SLF4J

I mainly write articles for two reasons: to understand something that is new to me or to document something I regularly have to explain to others. This article definitely falls in the second category: in order to celebrate the new 1.0.0 version of Logback, I’ve decided to write down once and for all how to properly use SLF4J with Maven since it seems there’s no shortage of questions about it.

Basics

The basis of SLF4J is to have two separate components, one API and one implementation. That means that your code should solely be dependent on the API thus the implementation can be changed at your convenience. Remember that decoupling code from implementations by introducing an interface should be your first concern: at the library level, it’s the role of an API.

This is easily done like this in your POM:

<project ...>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
      <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
      <version>1.6.4</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
      <artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
      <scope>runtime</scope>
      <version>1.0.0</version>
    </dependency>
  <dependencies>
</project>

The runtime scope prevents us from using Logback’s implementation classes when coding, which achieves decoupling.

Note: if you’re using a parent POM for your project (because you have modules), it goes without saying the above dependencies should be under the dependencyManagement section.

Bridging

Since an application with only logging features is a bit limited, it’s highly likely we’ll need other dependencies. Of course, some of those dependencies may use other logging frameworks, such as Commons Logging or Log4J.

For example, Spring uses Commons Logging: thus, logs produced by our application would use logback while those produced by Spring would use Commons Logging. This strategy needs two different configurations files (as well as knowledge of both) which is not very intuitive. Moreover, this would be unwieldly when reading twothe flow on two different sources. Note that this could be mitigated by using logging targets other than files (which I haven’t seen yet).

Fortunately, SLF4J provides bridging components that let us wire third-party API calls directly to SLF4J. For Spring, that means removing all dependencies to Commons Logging and replacing them with a single dependency to the Commons Logging to SLF4 bridge.

<project ...>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
      <version>3.0.0</version>
      <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
          <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
          <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
      </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
      <version>3.0.0</version>
      <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
          <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
          <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
      </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
      <version>3.0.0</version>
      <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
          <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
          <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
      </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
      <artifactId>jcl-over-slf4j</artifactId>
      <version>1.6.2</version>
    </dependency>
  <dependencies>
</project>

Like in the section above, you should preferably use the

Note: although this knowledge is by no means necessary, know that since API and implementation are both packages together in the commons-logging.jar, the jcl-over-slf4.jar bridge completely replaces the API classes provided by Commons Logging. That means you shouldn’t have both JAR in your classpath!

Troubleshooting

Remember the Highlander rule: “there can be only one”. In this case, there can be only one implementation available on the classpath since SLF4J uses the Java Services Provider. If its the case, SLF4J will display a “Multiple bindings were found on the class path” warning and uses the first it finds (first on the classpath). Since classpaths are ordered by Maven, there’s little chance it will be the thing we want. Thus, take care of not putting slf4j-simple in the test scope along with logback or be prepared to face undetermined side-effects.

To go further:

• Logback Project
• SLF4J warning or error messages and their meanings

From http://blog.frankel.ch/configuring-maven-to-use-slf4j