need functionality to truncate the tail of fields using PatternLa yout

["Lethin, Doug" <Do...@Intuit.com>]

I'm migrating my application to log4j and need to define a message format
that's compatable with an output already in place from my original logging
code. There are two formats I can't currently seem to do:

1. I need to output the timestamp field as a two letter day of week string
-- Mo, Tu, We, etc.

2. I need to output the priority field as one character - D, I, W, E, F

It seems the formatting directives don't allow for this.  They allow you to
truncate fields to a max value, but they're truncated from the front, such
that the directive '%.1p will truncate Info to 'o' and not 'I'

I looked through the latest log4j code, and found a way to patch this
functionality in by adding another formatting directive similar to the '.'
but using a '#' instead.

It will similarly define the max length for a field, BUT it will truncate
the trailing characters rather than the leading characters.

Examples:

	%d{E}	-> Tuesday
	%.2d{E} -> ay
	%#2d{E} -> Tu
	%p -> INFO
	%.1p -> O
	%#1p -> I

In order to do this, I needed to make minor patches to 3 files:

- org.apache.log4j.helpers.FormattingInfo.java
- org.apache.log4j.helpers.PatternConverter.java
- org.apache.log4j.helpers.PatternParser.java

I'd be happy to submit these patches in the hopes that this functionality
could be added to the code base.

I'm assuming all I need to do is send mail to this list with the subject
PATCH, or [PATCH], and then include in the message the three diff -c
outputs?

Is this kind of functionality useful to others?
Is this the approach I should be taking when proposing changes?

Thanks in advance.

Doug


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