[log4j-announce] log4j version 0.9.1

[Ceki G. <cg...@ur...>]

Greetings everyone,

I am pleased to announce log4j version 0.9.1, the 19th public release.

This release is backward compatible with 0.9.0 except the new dependance on 
the DOM level 2 API in org.log4j.xml.DOMConfigurator.

This release adds asynchronous logging and the capability to automatically 
reload changed or newly created configuration files. Some of the new 
features in the DOMConfigurator require a JAXP, DOM level 2 compliant 
parser. As far as I know, the only parser fulfilling both requirements is 
Apache's Xerces parser.

The HISTORY file reads:

[*] Changes that are 100% compatible with existing client code.
[**] Changes that requiring little or no modification to existing client code.
[***] Changes requiring important modifications to existing client code.

  November 30, 2000

  - Release of version 0.9.1 (the 19th public release)

  - Corrected a typo making NTEventLogAppender.dll register the wrong
    category message file. Thanks to Peter Hayes for accurately
    reporting this bug. [*]

  - The DOMConfigurator and PropertyConfigurator can now automatically
    detect modified configuration files and re-read them. [*]

  - Added AsyncAppender which buffers log requests and serves them
    at a later time. AsyncAppender can increase logging performance
    tremendously if logging operations are interspersed with long
    and blocking non CPU-intensive operations, typically I/O or network
    access. For CPU intensive applications, using the AsyncAppender
    will actualy degrade logging performance by 10 to 25 percent. [*]

  - The log4j.dtd has been modified to allow appenders to refer to
    other appenders by IDREF. [*]

  - The DOMConfigurator has been modified to take advantage of ID/IDREF
    attributes when referring to appenders. This change requires a
    DOM Level-2 API compliant parser. DOM Level-2 java bindings are
    available at
    http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-DOM-Level-2-19990923/java-binding.html.

  - Added the configure(String filename) method to DOMConfigurator.
    This method requires the presence of a JAXP compatible parser.

    At this time, the only DOM2 and JAXP compatible parser seems to be
    the Apache xerces parser.

  - Added the PriorityMatchFilter allowing filtering by exact priority
    match. This was a common request by users. [*]

  - The configuration of a category is now an atomic operation. This
    ensures that log requests are not lost while configuration is in
    progress. Anders Kristensen was to first to observe the potential
    problems in non-atomic configurations. [*]

Best regards, Ceki Gulcu (cg...@ur...)