Does logback need groovy.jar or groovy-all.jar?

Question

I'm looking to minimize the size of my software distribution, and groovy-all.jar is by far the biggest JAR. Groovy is used for logback configuration[1]. On the bottom of the Groovy download page there's a section on the split Groovy distribution.

Which modules / JAR files does logback need to function properly? Is just groovy.jar sufficient?

[1] Yes, I realize I could configure logback with XML, eliminating the need for Groovy support. That is not my question.

Do you have a source for that? I'd rather not run into obscure problems. — Frank Kusters, Jan 20 '15 at 14:55

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 13 '19 at 18:00

I haven't found a source, but as of logback version 1.0.13 my tests show that groovy-jsr223 is needed as well. If I import only groovy in my pom.xml, logback complains about missing classes. The error message is

ERROR in ch.qos.logback.classic.LoggerContext[default] - Groovy classes are not available on the class path. ABORTING INITIALIZATION.

My dependency configuration that works is:

<dependency>
  <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
  <artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.13</version>
  <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.groovy</groupId>
    <artifactId>groovy</artifactId>
    <version>2.5.8</version>
    <type>pom</type>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.groovy</groupId>
    <artifactId>groovy-jsr223</artifactId>
    <version>2.5.8</version>
    <type>pom</type>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

I'm not working with Logback anymore so I can't verify your answer. But it looks good so I'll mark it as accepted. — Frank Kusters, Nov 14 '19 at 14:42

Does logback need groovy.jar or groovy-all.jar?

1 Answers1