Grails 2.4.3 considers FATAL log level as ERROR - log4j

Question

I'm learning about log4j configuration in Grails. Below is my Config.groovy. The logger grails.app.controllers.logging.FatalController is configured to log fatal level only.
log4j.main = {
// Example of changing the log pattern for the default console appender:
//
//appenders {
// console name:'stdout', layout:pattern(conversionPattern: '%c{2} %m%n')
//}
fatal 'grails.app.controllers.logging.FatalController'
error 'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.servlet', // controllers
'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.pages', // GSP
'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.sitemesh', // layouts
'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping.filter', // URL mapping
'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping', // URL mapping
'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons', // core / classloading
'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins', // plugins
'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.orm.hibernate', // hibernate integration
'org.springframework',
'org.hibernate',
'net.sf.ehcache.hibernate'
warn 'grails.app.services.logging.WarnService',
'grails.app.controllers.logging.WarnController'
This is my FatalController.groovy:
package logging
class FatalController {
def index(){
log.debug("This is not shown")
log.warn("neither this")
log.error("or that")
log.fatal("but this does")
render "logged"
}
}
Now, when I execute this I expected it to log "but this does". However it doesn't. When I changed Config.groovy line:
fatal 'grails.app.controllers.logging.FatalController'
to this:
all 'grails.app.controllers.logging.FatalController'
The output I get is this:
2014-10-15 12:33:04,070 [http-bio-8080-exec-2] DEBUG logging.FatalController - This is not shown
2014-10-15 12:33:04,071 [http-bio-8080-exec-2] WARN logging.FatalController - neither this
| Error 2014-10-15 12:33:04,072 [http-bio-8080-exec-2] ERROR logging.FatalController - or that
| Error 2014-10-15 12:33:04,072 [http-bio-8080-exec-2] ERROR logging.FatalController - but this does
Notice that the message "but this does" is defined in FatalController.groovy to be logged as fatal
log.fatal("but this does")
And what the log message say is that it is a ERROR level message log:
| Error 2014-10-15 12:33:04,072 [http-bio-8080-exec-2] ERROR logging.FatalController - but this does
So there are two problems: 1) FATAL log messages are not shown when the logger level is defined as FATAL and 2) when I code log.fatal("something"), the log shows it as an ERROR level message.
What am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

I think it's a Grails bug (I'm using Grails 2.4.5).
I found a workaround: try to use log4j in "old way".
import org.apache.log4j.Logger
class FatalController {
Logger log = Logger.getLogger(getClass())
def index() {
// ...
}
}