Java Log Test Utils

If you want to verify logs written during a test, or await a specific log message before continuing, this may be the test helper you are looking for.

Only works if you use: SLF4J and Logback Classic.

Maven dependency:

<dependency>
  <groupId>dk.ralu.opensource.testsupport</groupId>
  <artifactId>log-test-util</artifactId>
  <version>0.1</version>
</dependency>

Note: Examples below are from LoggingTestUtilTest.java.

We can “record” log messages and assert they are as expected:

// By using a try-with-resources, we ensure the LoggingTestUtil is closed when done (which unregister's its log appender).
// Passing a logger as argument, means the util will only "listen" to log messages written to this logger or one of its descendants.
try (LoggingTestUtil loggingTestUtil = new LoggingTestUtil(LOGGER)) {

    // We overwrite the configured level (will be reset when we close the LoggingTestUtil).
    loggingTestUtil.setLevel(Level.ALL);

    // This will collect all log messages from now on and until we close the LoggingTestUtil.
    // The recorder stores all logging events in memory - but using it in a single test shouldn't be a problem.
    LoggingEventRecorder loggingEventRecorder = loggingTestUtil.addLoggingEventRecorder();

    // Lets log something (here we would usually call some code that we expect to write some log statements when run)

    LOGGER.debug("Hello on {} level", "debug");
    LOGGER.info("Hello on info level");

    // Let's assert the log statements we have received are as expected

    assertEquals(2, loggingEventRecorder.getLoggingEvents().size());

    assertEquals(1, loggingEventRecorder.countMatches("Hello on debug level"));

    assertEquals(2, loggingEventRecorder.countMatches(
            loggingEvent -> loggingEvent.getFormattedMessage().startsWith("Hello")));

    assertEquals(1, loggingEventRecorder.countMatches(
            loggingEvent -> loggingEvent.getLevel() == Level.INFO));
}

Sometimes we are testing code, that runs in multiple threads. It can be useful to let the test main thread wait (block) until another thread has written a specific log message. In other words a kind of “crappy” coordination between threads, which should never be done in production code, but can be OK to do, when we’re testing (it might be even worse to built thread coordination into the production code just to be able to test it):

// Not giving a specific logger to the LoggingTestUtil constructor, means it will use the root logger, which in turn means all log
// messages will be handled (unless ignored because of the log level set in the config).
try (LoggingTestUtil loggingTestUtil = new LoggingTestUtil()) {

    loggingTestUtil.setLevel(Level.ALL);

    // Let's start a thread, that logs a sequence of numbers (1-100 in a never ending loop), just to simulate a situation, where we
    // can wait for another thread to log something (as we then know how far it is), before we let the main test thread continue.
    startNumberLoggingThread();

    // Await requires a timeout to ensure, that our test stops & fails, even if the log message(s) we are waiting for never comes.
    // Await takes a predicate, that must return true if the current logging event is one of those we waited for.
    // Here we say we want to wait for 5 matching events before await should return.
    // The await call returns the actual logging events that matched our predicate.
    List<ILoggingEvent> loggingEvents = loggingTestUtil.awaitLoggingEvents(
            Duration.ofMinutes(1),
            5,
            loggingEvent -> loggingEvent.getFormattedMessage().endsWith("12") || loggingEvent.getFormattedMessage().endsWith("24")
    );

    // Let's just write out the logging messages that matched our predicate.
    LOGGER.info(
            "Finally we got the 5 log messages we were waiting for:\n{}",
            loggingEvents.stream()
                    .map(ILoggingEvent::getFormattedMessage)
                    .collect(Collectors.joining(", ", "{", "}"))
    );

    // Will output something a la:
    // Finally we got the 5 log messages we were waiting for:
    // {Current number: 12, Current number: 24, Current number: 12, Current number: 24, Current number: 12}

}

If we wait for too long, we will get a timeout:

try (LoggingTestUtil loggingTestUtil = new LoggingTestUtil()) {

    // Note: the log level for the root logger (see logback-test.xml) is set to Level WARN, and as the number logging thread logs
    // on level INFO, we will never get the log messages we are waiting for.
    // loggingTestUtil.setLevel(Level.ALL);

    startNumberLoggingThread();

    assertThrows(AwaitTimeoutException.class, () ->

            loggingTestUtil.awaitLoggingEvents(
                    Duration.ofSeconds(2), // Let's fail fast
                    5,
                    loggingEvent -> loggingEvent.getFormattedMessage().endsWith("12") || loggingEvent.getFormattedMessage()
                            .endsWith("24")
            )
    );


}

You can define your own logging event listeners - if you come up with something cool - please share :-)

try (LoggingTestUtil loggingTestUtil = new LoggingTestUtil()) {

    loggingTestUtil.addLoggingEventListener(loggingEvent -> System.out.println(loggingEvent.getMessage()));

    LOGGER.warn("Message without an arg");
    LOGGER.warn("Message that says {} with an arg!", "Hello");

    // Will print:
    // Message without an arg
    // Message that says {} with an arg!
}