java - How do I overwrite a log file in log4j?

Question

I have a log file that has the following appender added to it :

logger.addAppender(new FileAppender(new PatternLayout(),"log.txt"));

the thing is, each time I'm running my application, additional logging information gets appended to the same log file. What can I do to overwrite the file each time ?

Answer 1

If you have an appender declared like so in a properties file:

log4j.appender.LOGFILE=org.apache.log4j.FileAppender
log4j.appender.LOGFILE.File=file.log
log4j.appender.LOGFILE.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.LOGFILE.layout.ConversionPattern=%d %-5p %c - %m%n

Then what you want to add is

log4j.appender.LOGFILE.Append=false

The default value is true.

So, if you are declaring your appenders programmatically, then what you want to do is call setAppend(false).