Question

I have some code that is sometimes called from my own Main method and sometimes it is embedded within someone else’s program. When configuring logging, I want to be able to detect that someone has already configured Java Util Logging and if they have then I want to skip my configuration. I have this method:

public static boolean isLoggingAlreadyConfigured(){        
    Logger logger = Logger.getLogger("");
    Handler[] handlers = logger.getHandlers();
    return handlers != null && handlers.length > 1;
}

But I think it is unreliable.

Can you suggest something better?

Answer 1

The simple answer is that java.util logging is always configured.

The javadoc for LogManager says that it is a global object that is created automatically, and that it is configured automatically based either on what a couple of system properties say, or (if the properties are not set) using a built-in logging properties configuration. (Refer to the javadoc for details). The bottom line is that you won’t ever see the logger in an “unconfigured” state.

You could figure out what a JRE’s built-in logging properties configuration says by default, and test to see if the current configuration is different. But this approach has some problems:

• The JRE’s built-in config could have been tweaked (per the javadoc).
• Different JRE releases could have defaults (hypothetically …).

and most important

• You probably cannot programmatically distinguish some application-specific configurations from the default configurations.