[java] Log4j2 configuration - No log4j2 configuration file found

Was following the documentations - Apache Log4j2 Configuratoin and Apache Log4j2 Maven in configuring log4j2 with yaml. As per the documentation, the following maven dependencies are required:

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
    <artifactId>log4j-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.8.1</version>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
    <artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>
    <version>2.8.1</version>
  </dependency>

and

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat</groupId>
    <artifactId>jackson-dataformat-yaml</artifactId>
    <version>2.8.6</version>
</dependency>

Just adding these didn't pick the configuration and always gave error. The way of debugging configuration by adding -Dorg.apache.logging.log4j.simplelog.StatusLogger.level=TRACE helped in seeing the logs. Later had to download the source using Maven and debugging helped in understanding the depended classes of log4j2. They are listed in org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.yaml.YamlConfigurationFactory:

com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper
com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode
com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParser
com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.yaml.YAMLFactory

Adding dependency mapping for jackson-dataformat-yaml will not have the first two classes. Hence, add the jackson-databind dependency to get yaml configuration working:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
    <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
    <version>2.8.6</version>
</dependency>

You may add the version by referring to the Test Dependencies section of log4j-api version item from MVN Repository. E.g. for 2.8.1 version of log4j-api, refer this link and locate the jackson-databind version.

Moreover, you can use the below Java code to check if the classes are available in the classpath:

System.out.println(ClassLoader.getSystemResource("log4j2.yml")); //Check if file is available in CP
ClassLoader cl = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader(); //Code as in log4j2 API. Version: 2.8.1
 String [] classes = {"com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper",
 "com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode",
 "com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParser",
 "com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.yaml.YAMLFactory"};

 for(String className : classes) {
     cl.loadClass(className);
 }