Grails Goodness: Writing Log Messages With Grails 3.2

Grails 3.2 changed the logging implementation for the log field that is automatically injected in the Grails artifacts, like controllers and services. Before Grails 3.2 the log field was from Jakarta Apache Commons Log class, but since Grails 3.2, this has become the Logger class from the Slf4J API. A big difference is the fact that the methods for logging on the Logger class don't accept an Object as the first argument. Before, there would be an implicit toString invocation on an object, but that doesn't work anymore.

In the following example, we try to use an object as the first argument of the debug method in a controller class:

package mrhaki.grails3

class SampleController {

    def index() { 
        log.debug new Expando(action: 'index')
        [:]
    }

}

When we invoke the index action, we get an exception:

...
2016-12-09 14:59:20.283 ERROR --- [nio-8080-exec-1] o.g.web.errors.GrailsExceptionResolver   : MissingMethodException occurred when processing request: [GET] /sample/index
No signature of method: ch.qos.logback.classic.Logger.debug() is applicable for argument types: (groovy.util.Expando) values: [{action=index}]
Possible solutions: debug(java.lang.String), debug(java.lang.String, [Ljava.lang.Object;), debug(java.lang.String, java.lang.Object), debug(java.lang.String, java.lang.Throwable), debug(org.slf4j.Marker, java.lang.String), debug(java.lang.String, java.lang.Object, java.lang.Object). Stacktrace follows:

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: null
        at org.grails.core.DefaultGrailsControllerClass$ReflectionInvoker.invoke(DefaultGrailsControllerClass.java:210)
        at org.grails.core.DefaultGrailsControllerClass.invoke(DefaultGrailsControllerClass.java:187)
        at org.grails.web.mapping.mvc.UrlMappingsInfoHandlerAdapter.handle(UrlMappingsInfoHandlerAdapter.groovy:90)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:963)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:897)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:970)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:861)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:846)
        at org.springframework.boot.web.filter.ApplicationContextHeaderFilter.doFilterInternal(ApplicationContextHeaderFilter.java:55)
        at org.grails.web.servlet.mvc.GrailsWebRequestFilter.doFilterInternal(GrailsWebRequestFilter.java:77)
        at org.grails.web.filters.HiddenHttpMethodFilter.doFilterInternal(HiddenHttpMethodFilter.java:67)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: ch.qos.logback.classic.Logger.debug() is applicable for argument types: (groovy.util.Expando) values: [{action=index}]
Possible solutions: debug(java.lang.String), debug(java.lang.String, [Ljava.lang.Object;), debug(java.lang.String, java.lang.Object), debug(java.lang.String, java.lang.Throwable), debug(org.slf4j.Marker, java.lang.String), debug(java.lang.String, java.lang.Object, java.lang.Object)
        at mrhaki.grails3.SampleController.index(SampleController.groovy:6)
        ... 14 common frames omitted
...

When we change the log statement to log.debug new Expando(action: 'index').toString(), it works.

Another time saver and great feature is the use of placeholders, {}, in the logging message. This allows for late binding of variables that are used in the logging message. Remember when we used the Apache Commons Logging library, we had to enclose a logging statement in an if statement to check if logging was enabled. Because otherwise, the logging message with variable references was always evaluated, even though logging was disabled. With Slf4J's Logger, we don't have to wrap logging statements with an if statement if we use the "{}" placeholders. Slf4J will first check if logging is enabled for the log message — then the logging message is created with the variables. This allows for much cleaner code.

In the following example we use the placeholders to create a logging message that included the variable id:

package mrhaki.grails3

class SampleController {

    def show(final String id) {
        // Before Grails 3.2 we should write:
        // if (log.debugEnabled) {
        //     log.debug "Invoke show with id [$id]"
        // }
        // With Grails 3.2 it is only the debug method and 
        // String evaluation using {}.
        log.debug 'Invoke show with id [{}]', id
        [id: id]
    }

}

Written with Grails 3.2.3