Creating a log parser for the Log and Trace Analyzer

Enterprise information systems of all kinds generate various types of log files such as access logs, activity logs and error logs. These log files usually contain log records constructed in proprietary formats. The lack of a common convention for logging makes cross-system analysis such as event correlation very difficult.

With the aid of the Generic Log Adapter framework, programmers can contribute static parsers and parsers based on pre-defined rules to the Import wizard in the Log and Trace Analyzer tool. In a rule-based parser, an adapter configuration file containing parsing rules expressed in regular expression grammar is provided to the Generic Log Adapter engine. In a static parser, the adapter configuration file contains a reference to a Java class that performs the log file parsing.

The topic Creating log parsers provides details on how to create a log parser for the Log and Trace Analyzer. The topic Adapter configuration file samples provides examples of rules-based adapters and static adapters that can be used as a basis for a log parser.