Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 12:41:22 -0400 From: "Zaphod Beeblebrox" <zbeeble@gmail.com> To: "Robert Watson" <rwatson@freebsd.org> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Martin_Sch=FCtte?= <lists@mschuette.name> Subject: Re: Improving Syslog Message-ID: <5f67a8c40805060941n7d2882aayea7d72d0a76cd89d@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20080506171525.O52391@fledge.watson.org> References: <481B7ED4.3020208@mschuette.name> <20080506171525.O52391@fledge.watson.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 12:21 PM, Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org> wrote: > > This sounds like an exciting project -- while I recognize the concerns > other have expressed about complexity, I think that complexity can be > managed if done carefully. I'm not sure if you've looked at Apple's > extended syslog, which among other things, includes a binary log file format > making it more mechanically searched and managed, do take a look if you > haven't. ... and I'm not just saying this to be ornery, but what about test log file formats is not mechanically searchable? Note that I'm not playing the XML card here (I'm not an XML fan) but the only real draw of a binary format (to me) is a small amount of innate compression (numbers and dates in binary form) and the ability to have field separators that are not part of the printable character set. UN*X has a strong tradition of text files that work around these two limitations in a variety of ways --- and UN*X tools are built with these assumptions. There's a strong set of reasons to consider retaining text formats and continuing to improve our tools around them. One way to strengthen the syslog format is to have syslog enforce a format _and_ enforce that whatever field separator is chosen cannot be written within a field.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?5f67a8c40805060941n7d2882aayea7d72d0a76cd89d>