Extractors¶

An Extractor defines the criteria that determine which log entries the AppJar captures and persists to the database. Only log events that match at least one active Extractor are stored. This allows fine-grained control over what is retained, preventing irrelevant noise from filling the log database.

Extractors List¶

The Extractors list view is available at /al/extractors under Activity Log → Extractors in the navigation menu.

Filters¶

The top of the view contains filters to narrow down the list:

Name — Filters extractors by name (partial match).
Availability — Filters by active or inactive status.
Log levels — Filters extractors that include a specific severity level.

Click Filter to apply, Clear to reset.

Grid Columns¶

Availability — Displays whether the extractor is Active or Inactive. Active extractors are currently capturing logs.
Name — The name assigned to the extractor.
Logger filters — A summary of the logger name patterns configured.
Detail filters — A summary of the log message content patterns configured.
Log levels — The severity levels this extractor captures.
Actions — A menu with available operations for the row.

Row Actions¶

Clicking the ··· icon in the Actions column opens a menu with the following options:

Edit extractor — Opens the extractor's configuration form for editing.
Duplicate extractor — Creates a copy of the extractor with the name prefixed by "Copy of".
Activate / Deactivate extractor — Toggles the active state. Inactive extractors do not capture any logs.
Delete extractor — Opens a confirmation dialog before permanently deleting the extractor.

Creating and Editing an Extractor¶

Click New extractor to open the creation form. Clicking Edit extractor from a row's action menu opens the same form pre-filled with the existing values.

Extractor Form — Extractor configuration form

Name¶

Enter a unique name that identifies the purpose of this extractor (e.g., "AppJars Logs", "Spring Framework").

Time Filters¶

Defines the time windows during which this extractor captures logs.

Enabled all the time — When checked, the extractor captures logs at all times, on all days. No specific time range configuration is needed.
If unchecked, one or more time filters must be defined. Click Add new time filter to open the time filter dialog.

Each time filter supports three modes:

Between two dates — Captures logs only between a specific start date/time and end date/time.
Days of week between two dates — Captures logs on specific days of the week, within a date range.
Days of week — Captures logs on recurring days of the week (no date boundary), optionally within a daily time range.

A year calendar is displayed alongside the time filter grid (on wider screens). It visually highlights which days are covered by the configured filters. Clicking a date shows the active time periods for that day.

Log Levels¶

Select one or more severity levels that this extractor should capture. Available levels: TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL. At least one level must be selected.

Stacktraces¶

Save stacktraces for throwables — When enabled, the extractor will also persist the full stack trace for log entries that are associated with an exception (Throwable instance).

HTTP Session¶

Save session ID — When enabled, the HTTP session identifier is stored alongside each captured log entry. This allows filtering logs by user session in the Activity Log view.

Logger Filters¶

Defines which loggers (by class name) this extractor should capture. At least one logger filter is required.

Click Add new logger filter to open the filter dialog. Each filter has a Type and a Pattern:

Contains — Matches loggers whose fully qualified class name contains the specified string.
Starts with — Matches loggers whose class name starts with the specified string.
Ends with — Matches loggers whose class name ends with the specified string.
Regex — Matches loggers using a regular expression pattern.
Everything — Matches all loggers (no filtering by logger name).
Doesn't contain — Excludes loggers whose class name contains the specified string.
Multiple substring match regex — Matches loggers containing all specified substrings.
Multiple substring exclude regex — Excludes loggers containing any of the specified substrings.

Detail Filters¶

Defines which log messages (by content) this extractor should capture. At least one detail filter is required.

The same filter types available for Logger Filters apply here, but are applied against the log message content instead of the class name.

When multiple detail filters are configured, a log entry is captured if its message content satisfies any of them. Detail filters are evaluated in combination with logger and timestamp filters: a log entry is extracted only when all three filter types match. If no detail filters are defined, no log entries are captured by this extractor.

Saving¶

Click Save to persist the extractor. Validation errors are shown inline if any required field is missing or invalid. Click Cancel to discard changes and return to the list.

When editing an existing extractor, a Delete button is also available, which opens a confirmation dialog before removing the extractor permanently.