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We needed different log files for a common web project, this gateway project simply loads web services dynamically and generates the wsdd files at runtime, but the problem was huge size of the common log file used by all services. So we needed different log files for different services.

Here is the step by step solution to separate&customize the log files:

• The first step is adding a filter to web.xml file so we can set the service names:

  <filter>
  <filter-name>WSLoggerFilter</filter-name>
  <filter-class>com.logger.WSLoggerFilter</filter-class>
  <description></description>
  </filter>
  
  <filter-mapping>
  <filter-name>WSLoggerFilter</filter-name>
  <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </filter-mapping>
  

• Here is the simple filter – WSLoggerFilter.java:

  public final class WSLoggerFilter implements Filter {
  private static final String SERVICE_NAME = "serviceName";
  
  public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response,
  FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
  String[] url = ((HttpServletRequest)request).getRequestURI().split("/");
  MDC.put(SERVICE_NAME, url != null ? url[url.length - 1] : "");
  // Forward the request to the next resource in the chain
  chain.doFilter(request, response);
  MDC.remove(SERVICE_NAME);
  }  .....
  

• The next step is adding a custom adapter that uses the MDC “serviceName” parameter to separate the log files, we just alter the name of the default logging file by adding the serviceName parameter we set at the filter. We add the custom adapter to the log4j.properties file:

  # custom file appender
  log4j.appender.F=com.logger.WSLoggerAppender
  log4j.appender.F.mdcName=serviceName

• Next step is implementing the custom appender. I used DailyRollingFileAppender to change the name of the logging file, simply by adding service name. Simply do not forget to override close method to close all the appenders we used. The custom adapter file WSLoggerAppender.java:

  public class WSLoggerAppender extends DailyRollingFileAppender {
  private String mdcName;
  
  private Map<string, dailyrollingfileappender=""> map = new HashMap<string, dailyrollingfileappender="">();
  
  @Override
  public synchronized void doAppend(LoggingEvent event) {
  Object key = MDC.get(getMdcName());
  if (key == null) {
  super.doAppend(event);
  return;
  }
  String serviceName = key.toString();
  if (serviceName != null &amp;&amp; serviceName.length() > 0 &amp;&amp; !map.containsKey(serviceName)) {
  try {
  DailyRollingFileAppender dailyRollingFileAppender = new DailyRollingFileAppender(layout, fileName + "." + serviceName, getDatePattern());
  map.put(serviceName, dailyRollingFileAppender);
  } catch (IOException e) {
  }
  }
  DailyRollingFileAppender ap = (DailyRollingFileAppender) map.get(serviceName);
  if (ap != null)
  ap.doAppend(event);
  else
  super.append(event);
  }
  
  @Override
  public void close() {
  for (Iterator iter = map.values().iterator(); iter.hasNext();) {
  DailyRollingFileAppender appender = (DailyRollingFileAppender) iter.next();
  appender.close();
  }
  super.close();
  }
  
  public void setMdcName(String mdcName) {
  this.mdcName = mdcName;
  }
  
  public String getMdcName() {
  return mdcName;
  }
  }

That was all!

Well startup steps with IntelliJ IDEA:

• Download the Grails
• Set the GRAILS_HOME and add it to path environment variable
• Download the Grails IntelliJ plugin JetGroovy (If you use IntelliJ IDEA 8 you should skip this step, since JetGroovy plugin is bundled in this version otherwise IDE would crash)
  
• Just unzip the JetGroovy to plugins folder
• Change the installation directory for Grails from Settings/Groovy&Grails
• Update the JetGroovy plugin from Settings/Plugins (There were some mysterious errors at IntelliJ like crashing at Backspace key )

My first HelloGrails application had the below error, after playing with the Grails version and trying an older version: grails-1.0.4, I realized that the Groovy was also necessary for JetGroovy plugin. I had already installed groovy but GROOVY_HOME environment setting was missing, but still I could not get the point: Why can’t I use Grails without Groovy @IntelliJ?

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.codehaus.groovy.grails.cli.GrailsScriptRunner
at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.RootLoader.findClass(RootLoader.java:156)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:306)
at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.RootLoader.loadClass(RootLoader.java:128)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:251)
at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.GroovyStarter.rootLoader(GroovyStarter.java:98)
at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.GroovyStarter.main(GroovyStarter.java:130)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:90)
Process finished with exit code 1


Anyway, you can add two more steps for Grails startup for IntelliJ IDEA users:

• Download the Groovy
• Set the GROOVY_HOME and add it to path environment variable

My startup configuration:
grails-1.0.4
groovy-1.5.7
jdk1.6.0_07
IntelliJ IDEA 7.0.4

The books we ordered have just arrived: great gifts for the new year

• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

I will start with classic book of software engineering – The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering first which was first published in 1975 by Fred Brooks. This anniversary edition includes four new chapters and I really wonder about the evolution of software engineering and the human factor in the past 33 years. I can’t wait especially for the legendary The Mythical-Man Month and No Silver Bullet essays.

• Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

Peopleware is another oldies/goldies project management book, first published in 1987, described as “Anti-Dilbert Manifesto”

• Agile Project Management With Scrum

Agile Project Management book from Ken Schwaber, one of the originators of the Scrum process. Agile development process explained with lots of examples, success and failure projects.

I wish you a Happy New Year!

First change your perspective to Resource and check your .project file if natures tag also contains facet nature:

    <natures>
        <nature>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javanature</nature>
        <nature>org.eclipse.wst.common.project.facet.core.nature</nature>
    </natures>

And second update your project facets by Project Properties/Project Facets/Add Remove Project Facets:

So you can use and add this new web project to Tomcat server.

Note: We still use older Eclipse version 3.2.2 because of some custom plugin problems

I upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.7 Beta 3 and i am very impressed at first sight Also with very nice plugins like Zemanta and Organize Series blogging is really a pleasure, thanks to them.

You can also upgrade your WordPress if you do not like installing your plugins every time by ftp, instead of manual install you can easily install/upgrade your plugins just like Firefox

Some new features:

• Plugin installer is the best improvement as i mentioned, saves you from lot’s of manual work
• Stylish design – new admin pages and menu are really cool and easy to use
• QuickPress feauture is added
• and more…

After a very long time, i just returned to blogging and of course i have lot’s of things to tell We just moved to Amsterdam, as expats and i changed my job, and to be honest it is a busy one, i work as Software Engineer at a bank… I do not know why but as far as i know banks are really busy and unfortunately stressful compared to the software development jobs in other sectors.

I would appreciate if you can comment if i have the wrong impression but this is my third banking experience and all the issues are fatal, all the problems & solutions are so urgent and all the deadlines are so close, generally because of the legal obligations…

Amsterdam, if you have not visited yet is a nice city to live and travel… Wish me luck at this fresh start

I also have a new personal blog for sharing my experiences about Amsterdam&Netherlands, but this one is in Turkish, my native language

Timeout waiting for Tomcat v5.5 Server at localhost to start. Server did not start after 45s.

You need to set server timeout delay = Unlimited from Window>Preferences>Server…

First we have to commit all changes, in case of some failure at the merge operation we may revert all changes.

Select Team > Merge from menu, select the path of the branch and the revision. Revision number is selected from the Show Log, and is number when we created the branch.

Some useful links for SVN merge:

Eclipse SDK – Subversion Eclipse Plugin Manual

SVN Book

CPD-PMD’s Copy/Paste Detector can be used for finding duplicate code, which is included in PMD, a Java code analysis tool.
run mvn pmd:cpd ,
The report is displayed at cpd.html file, and the results are very efficient.

Simian – Similarity Analyser is also an alternative for finding duplicates.

pom.xml:

<reporting>
<outputDirectory>target/reporting/pmd</outputDirectory>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</reporting>

If you get the following error, simply add target-jdk configuration:
Caused by: net.sourceforge.pmd.ast.ParseException: Can’t use generics unless running in JDK 1.5 mode!

<reporting>
<outputDirectory>target/reporting/pmd</outputDirectory>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<targetJdk>1.5</targetJdk>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</reporting>

The PMD report is at pmd.html, but i couldn’t find categories, and more detailed reports.

We can also customize PMD rules & rulesets:

How to write a PMD rule?
How to make a new rule set?

CheckStyle is also a strong Maven 2 plugin for java code analysis. Simply running mvn checkstyle:checkstyle gives us detailed html/rss report(mvn site gives heap or memory error for some projects).

<reporting>
......
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</reporting>

We can customize the reports generated by Maven’s site plugin. Simply add or overwrite <reports> tag at project.xml. The result gives us reports of project like dependencies, project info, project reports (CMD and PMD reports included), source repository, …

<reports>
<report>index</report>
<report>dependencies</report>
<report>project-team</report>
<report>mailing-list</report>
<report>cim</report>
<report>issue-tracking</report>
<report>license</report>
<report>scm</report>
<report>maven-pmd-plugin</report>
<report>maven-checkstyle-plugin</report>
</reports>