Log Parser Architecture

Log Parser is made up of three components:

• Input Formats are generic record providers; records are equivalent to rows in a SQL table, and Input Formats can be thought of as SQL tables containing the data you want to process.
  Log Parser's built-in Input Formats can retrieve data from the following sources:
  • IIS log files (W3C, IIS, NCSA, Centralized Binary Logs, HTTP Error logs, URLScan logs, ODBC logs)
  • Windows Event Log
  • Generic XML, CSV, TSV and W3C - formatted text files (e.g. Exchange Tracking log files, Personal Firewall log files, Windows Media® Services log files, FTP log files, SMTP log files, etc.)
  • Windows Registry
  • Active Directory Objects
  • File and Directory information
  • NetMon .cap capture files
  • Extended/Combined NCSA log files
  • ETW traces
  • Custom plugins (through a public COM interface)

• A SQL-Like Engine Core processes the records generated by an Input Format, using a dialect of the SQL language that includes common SQL clauses (SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY), aggregate functions (SUM, COUNT, AVG, MAX, MIN), and a rich set of functions (e.g. SUBSTR, CASE, COALESCE, REVERSEDNS, etc.); the resulting records are then sent to an Output Format.
• Output Formats are generic consumers of records; they can be thought of as SQL tables that receive the results of the data processing.
  Log Parser's built-in Output Formats can:
  • Write data to text files in different formats (CSV, TSV, XML, W3C, user-defined, etc.)
  • Send data to a SQL database
  • Send data to a SYSLOG server
  • Create charts and save them in either GIF or JPG image files
  • Display data to the console or to the screen

Note: Transmitting data through a non-secure network might pose a serious security risk to the confidentiality of the information transmitted.
For more information on the security risks associated with non-secure networks, see Security Considerations.

The Log Parser tool is available as a command-line executable (LogParser.exe) and as a set of scriptable COM objects (LogParser.dll).
The two binaries are independent from each other; if you want to use only one, you do not need to install the other file on your computer.

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