Implementing Custom Logging with Spring AOP and Annotations

When developing a Spring project, simple AOP logging may not capture detailed information such as table names or operation descriptions. To overcome this, the article demonstrates how to define a custom annotation that stores the desired log metadata and how to retrieve it via a Spring AOP aspect.

Spring AOP terminology is introduced, covering Aspect, Joinpoint, Advice, and Pointcut, followed by a list of advice types (@Before, @AfterReturning, @AfterThrowing, @After, @Around) and the two configuration styles (XML and AspectJ annotation).

Custom annotation definition :

package com.ywj.log;

import java.lang.annotation.*;

/**
 * AOP日志记录 自定义注解类
 */
@Target({ElementType.PARAMETER, ElementType.METHOD})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Documented
public @interface SystemCrmlog {
    /** 日志描述 */
    String description() default "";
    /** 操作的表名 */
    String tableName() default "";
}

Aspect class that intercepts methods annotated with @SystemCrmlog, extracts annotation values, request information, and saves a CrmLogMessage entity to the database. It includes handling for different advice types (after throwing, after returning) and demonstrates how to obtain method parameters, signatures, and execution results.

package com.ywj.log;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import org.aspectj.lang.JoinPoint;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.*;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestAttributes;
import org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextHolder;
import org.springframework.web.context.request.ServletRequestAttributes;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;

@Aspect
@Component
public class SystemLogAspect {
    @Pointcut("@annotation(com.ywj.log.SystemCrmlog)")
    public void crmAspect() {}

    @AfterThrowing(value="crmAspect()", throwing="ex")
    public void afterThrowingMethod(JoinPoint joinPoint, Exception ex) throws Exception {
        // build and persist CrmLogMessage for exception case
    }

    @AfterReturning(value="crmAspect()", returning="returnValue")
    public void doCrmLog(JoinPoint joinPoint, Object returnValue) throws Exception {
        // build and persist CrmLogMessage for normal return case
    }

    // helper methods to extract annotation values, parameters, etc.
    private String getServiceMthodDescription(JoinPoint joinPoint) throws Exception { /* ... */ }
    private String getServiceMthodTableName(JoinPoint joinPoint) throws Exception { /* ... */ }
    private String getServiceMthodParams(JoinPoint joinPoint) throws Exception { /* ... */ }
    public HttpServletRequest getHttpServletRequest() { /* ... */ }
}

The article also provides the CrmLogMessage POJO that represents the log record, a WebUtil helper to fetch the current user from the session, and the necessary Spring XML configuration to enable @AspectJ support and component scanning.

<!-- Enable @AspectJ support -->
<aop:aspectj-autoproxy proxy-target-class="true"/>
<!-- Scan aspect package -->
<context:component-scan base-package="com.ywj.log"/>
<!-- Scan business implementation packages -->
<context:component-scan base-package="com.*.*.biz.impl"/>

Finally, an example of applying the custom annotation to a service method is shown:

@SystemCrmlog(description = "进行了登录操作", tableName = Constans.USER_TABLENAME)
public void login(...) { /* ... */ }

Overall, the guide walks readers through building a reusable, annotation‑driven logging mechanism in Spring, covering both the conceptual AOP background and the concrete Java implementation.