Jetty6 slf4j logging - how to get custom log Formatter to work?

Question

Hi,

I'm using jetty6 with SLF4J and java logging and have been trying to add a custom log Formatter, but no matter what I try I can't seem to get it to work.

I have a Formatter, like this:

package mycode.logging;
public class DeadSimpleFormatter extends SimpleFormatter
{
  // Nothing here at all - just an empty subclass of SimpleFormatter.
}

I want to use this as the default for my jetty logging, so I've created a ${jetty.home}/resources/logging.properties file:

handlers=java.util.logging.FileHandler
.level=INFO
java.util.logging.FileHandler.pattern=logs/test_%u.%g.log
java.util.logging.FileHandler.limit=90000
java.util.logging.FileHandler.count=20
java.util.logging.FileHandler.formatter=mycode.logging.DeadSimpleFormatter

mycode.level=INFO

I create a jar file logging.jar, containing the DeadSimpleFormatter class. I put this jar into ${jetty.home}/lib/ext.

I start jetty:

java -Djava.util.logging.config.file=resources/logging.properties 
    -jar start.jar etc/jetty-logging.xml etc/jetty.xml

I can see the output file being created. It follows the rules for limit and count as defined in my properties file. But it doesn't use my formatter - it reverts to the default XmlFormatter. I don't see any errors out of stdout or stderr.

If I change the logging.properties file to set the formatter like this:

java.util.logging.FileHandlerformatter=java.util.logging.SimpleFormatter

...then it works - the log file is written out using the normal SimpleFormatter. So I'm confident that my properties are ok and I have my slfj jars etc. all correct. It's just that Jetty doesn't like my DeadSimpleFormatter.

Since there's nothing - literally! - in DeadSimpleFormatter, I figure this may be a class loading issue. I tried explicitly adding the jar file like this:

java -Djetty.class.path=/mypathtojettyhome/lib/ext/logging.jar
    -Djava.util.logging.config.file=resources/logging.properties -jar start.jar 
    etc/jetty-logging.xml etc/jetty.xml

...but no joy.

I put a main method into my DeadSimpleFormatter and checked that I could run the jar:

java -jar lib/ext/logging.jar 

...This works, so I'm pretty sure my jar is ok.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on here? I've tried every combination I can think of.

Thanks, Alastair