How about extending/enhancing Logexpert's plugin capability by adding a user exit (aka wrapper) plugin that calls a user defined script (for example a VBScript) when each real time log data line arrives and before logexpert begins columnizer, highlight and trigger processing phase. The script is passed the log data line as input and returns a transformed data line or an empty line if script needs to do conditional filtering. I can then write the user defined VBScript code part to fix logs that do not follow strict column rules.
USE CASE:
In particular, I need to do that for Folding@home client log which is an inconsistent format. I need to code:
- get the date stamp if line begins "***...DateTimestamp***" else get it from column 1
- create an integer time value
- add/subtract time zone offset
- put new time back in correct place on line
This is a real time log, so pre-processing the logs before using logexpert would make this a more complex and ugly solution rather than have a general purpose user exit in logexpert that triggers on new log line data.
Examples of API hooks/user exits/plugins found in other software:
- Bginfo.exe (Microsoft Sysinternals) has hooks for using user defined VBScript (full VB function list, and subset of other features)
- Videolan (VLC) has hooks for calling LUA scripts.
It would be nice if wrapper was generic enough to support other script languages e.g. LUA, Python, or Perl. I could learn to write the back end code in another language if I have too. Logexpert performance is only going to be impacted if you need to use user defined scripts. I will help with testing phase if needed.
How about extending/enhancing Logexpert's plugin capability by adding a user exit (aka wrapper) plugin that calls a user defined script (for example a VBScript) when each real time log data line arrives and before logexpert begins columnizer, highlight and trigger processing phase. The script is passed the log data line as input and returns a transformed data line or an empty line if script needs to do conditional filtering. I can then write the user defined VBScript code part to fix logs that do not follow strict column rules.
USE CASE:
In particular, I need to do that for Folding@home client log which is an inconsistent format. I need to code:
This is a real time log, so pre-processing the logs before using logexpert would make this a more complex and ugly solution rather than have a general purpose user exit in logexpert that triggers on new log line data.
Examples of API hooks/user exits/plugins found in other software:
It would be nice if wrapper was generic enough to support other script languages e.g. LUA, Python, or Perl. I could learn to write the back end code in another language if I have too. Logexpert performance is only going to be impacted if you need to use user defined scripts. I will help with testing phase if needed.