Structuring and Parsing Unstructured Logs for Efficient Monitoring

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Let me give you an example: let’s say we have a log file that looks like this:


// This script is an example of a log file that contains information about errors and events that occurred at a specific time.

// The first line contains the date and time of the event, followed by the type of event (ERROR, INFO), the thread name (main, http-nio-8080-exec-1), and the error message (java.lang.NullPointerException: null).
2019-07-31 14:58:26, ERROR, [main], java.lang.NullPointerException: null

// The second and third lines contain information about an INFO event, including the thread name and the method that was invoked (org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke, org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.resourcesStarted).
2019-07-31 14:58:26, INFO, [http-nio-8080-exec-1], org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:141)
2019-07-31 14:58:26, INFO, [http-nio-8080-exec-1], org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.resourcesStarted(StandardContext.java:5788)

This log file has three different events (the first one is an error, the second and third ones are informational messages), but they’re all mixed together in a messy format that can be hard to read or analyze. By structuring and parsing this data, we can turn it into something more organized like:

// This script is used to parse and structure data from a log file containing three different events in a messy format.

// The data is structured into objects with four key-value pairs: timestamp, level, component, and message.

// The first event is an error, indicated by the "ERROR" level and a NullPointerException message.

// The second and third events are informational messages, indicated by the "INFO" level and different components and messages.

// The data is separated by commas and enclosed in curly braces, indicating an array of objects.

[
  {
    "timestamp": "2019-07-31 14:58:26",
    "level": "ERROR",
    "component": "[main]",
    "message": "java.lang.NullPointerException: null"
  },
  {
    "timestamp": "2019-07-31 14:58:26",
    "level": "INFO",
    "component": "[http-nio-8080-exec-1]",
    "message": "org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:141)"
  },
  {
    "timestamp": "2019-07-31 14:58:26",
    "level": "INFO",
    "component": "[http-nio-8080-exec-1]",
    "message": "org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.resourcesStarted(StandardContext.java:5788)"
  }
]

This format is much easier to read and analyze because each event has its own structure with clear labels for timestamp, level (error or info), component, and message. By doing this kind of data structuring and parsing, we can make it easier to monitor our systems and identify any issues that might be causing problems.

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