Layout. Log4jXmlFormat - Logging-log4j Wiki. Basic example Below is a basic xml configuration file for log4j that will get you started: This will print all debug or higher messages to the console/screen. Items of note: The appender is defined first, with a name (in this case "console"). A layout is defined for the appender (in this case PatternLayout ), and a pattern is defined for the layout. Plugging in a logging framework for Eclipse plug-ins.