[ Jason L Tibbitts III writes: ]
>
> right now an entry looks like (it's tab separated):
>
> test-list^Iwho^Itibbs@morpheus.hpc.uh.edu^I^Iwho test-list^Ishell^I1^I1^I884333935
>
> which isn't terribly useful for basic perusal, I suppose. My intent
> is to use the log for report generation; the goal is to make
> everything accessible remotely, even logging info. Thus I use a more
> machine-readable format.
I'd like to put in a plug for a CLF (Common Log Format) feature
worthy of consideration. Specifically, using '-' for unknown fields
instead of null (i.e. paired delimiters). That has its advantages for
machine parsing. IMO, tabs, while they lend some advantage to wetware
readability, are inferior to "whitespace" between fields which allows
pretty printing without destroying the basic format or parsability.
Using placeholders for fields allows multiple delimiters like that.
In fairness, one disadvantage is that whitespace embedded in fields
requires the field to be quoted, but embedded field delimiters is also a
(unaddressed) failing of strict character-delimited formats.
Other web server (specifically Apache) log file features might also be
worthy of consideration.
--
Dave Wolfe
Follow-Ups:
References:
|
|
