Optional Appenders

[Mark R Durman/CA/US/MQSolutions]

All, log4j 1.2 had (what I think) was incorrect support for optional layouts. If the layout was marked as optional it wasn't called even if it was supplied. That's not optional, it's either layout or no layout. My view is that if the layout is marked as optional, the appender should check if it was set. If yes, go ahead and call it, if no, skip the call and don't issue messages saying it's not there.

If everyone else is OK with that approach, which I don't see as breaking the operation of existing log4j implementations, I'd like to submit a patch to the 1.3 code.

Mark Durman
MQ Solutions