This is a follow up to JBAS-6917.

It would be nice to have an automatic compression of log files similar to the one implemented in Log4j extras:

http://logging.apache.org/log4j/companions/extras/apidocs/org/apache/log4j/rolling/TimeBasedRollingPolicy.html

"TimeBasedRollingPolicy supports automatic file compression. This feature is enabled if the value of the FileNamePattern option ends with .gz or .zip."

In JBoss Logging, I suppose this could be implemented on 2 levels:

1) In the FileHandler (http://anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/common/jboss-logmanager/trunk/src/main/java/org/jboss/logmanager/handlers/FileHandler.java) so that, with proper configuration, each log file is compressed in real time, and it exists only in compressed form from the moment of its creation.
2) In the PeriodicRotatingFileHandler (http://anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/common/jboss-logmanager/trunk/src/main/java/org/jboss/logmanager/handlers/PeriodicRotatingFileHandler.java) so that with proper configuration, archival log files can be compressed the moment they are rotated (e.g. server.log.2010-05-06.gz is created instead of server.log.2010-05-06), but the current log file should be plain text.

In PeriodicRotatingFileHandler, the implementation must take into account that compression of rotated log files may take considerable time and should be performed in the background - the handler should be able to process log records at any time, particularly during rotation, without losing any.