You'll want XML as soon as it exceeds one screenful :) And this XML is, well, "musused"; it should be that: <log> <record date="2005-02-21T18:57:39"

You'll want XML as soon as it exceeds one screenful :) And this XML is, well, "musused"; it should be that: <log> <record date="2005-02-21T18:57:39" millis="1109041059800" sequence="1" level="SEVERE" class="java.util.logging.LogManager$RootLogger" method="log" thread="10" message="A very very bad thing has happened!"> <exception id="123" message="java.lang.Exception" class="logtest" method="main" line="30" /> </record> </log> I also don't object squeezing the exception attributes into record with some prefix that would make the names unique, like that: <record date="2005-02-21T18:57:39" millis="1109041059800" sequence="1" level="SEVERE" class="java.util.logging.LogManager$RootLogger" method="log" thread="10" message="A very very bad thing has happened!" exc-message="java.lang.Exception" exc-class="logtest" exc-method="main" exc-line="30" /> Or, if it's possible to normalize these data, factor out the exception and other attributes and build an index of them so that they can be referenced by an ID: <exception id="123" message="java.lang.Exception" class="logtest" method="main" line="30" /> <record ... exception-id="123" />