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Date:      Tue, 06 May 2008 12:47:05 -0400
From:      Robert Noland <rnoland@2hip.net>
To:        Zaphod Beeblebrox <zbeeble@gmail.com>
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org, Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org>, Martin =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Sch=FCtte?= <lists@mschuette.name>
Subject:   Re: Improving Syslog
Message-ID:  <1210092425.40346.2.camel@squirrel.corp.cox.com.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <5f67a8c40805060941n7d2882aayea7d72d0a76cd89d@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <481B7ED4.3020208@mschuette.name> <20080506171525.O52391@fledge.watson.org> <5f67a8c40805060941n7d2882aayea7d72d0a76cd89d@mail.gmail.com>

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On Tue, 2008-05-06 at 12:41 -0400, Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
> 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.

I don't think anyone has suggested replacing text with a binary format.
Just providing an alternative for those who choose to use it.

robert.

> 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.
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