Processing a log file

Baz has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi all,
I'd like to process my access_log which has the following format -

68.1.62.74 - - [19/Mar/2003:22:34:22 -0500] "GET /rhcp/tabs/b.cgi?" "M
+ozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"
24.52.81.64 - - [19/Mar/2003:22:36:14 -0500] "GET /ff/tabs/index.cgi H
+TTP/1.1"  200 4210 "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSN 2.5; Windo
+ws 98)"
[download]

I'd like to be able to display how many hits a particular page gets per day.
I know that fseek is required when handling large files in C. How might I go about reading a large file using perl.
Thanks
Barry.

Comment on Processing a log file Download Code

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Re: Processing a log file by mpeppler (Vicar) on Dec 31, 2003 at 19:04 UTC
There's nothing special about reading a large file in perl (or in C, for that matter). You just open it, and read it a line (or block) at a time: `open(IN, "access_log") \|\| die "Can't open file: $!"; while(<IN>) { ... process the line ... } close(IN);` [download] Of course here it's the `...process the line...` bit that does all the interesting stuff, like parsing the access_log line to extract the information that interests you. I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was already a module on CPAN which does access_log parsing. Michael	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Processing a log file by BUU (Prior) on Dec 31, 2003 at 20:28 UTC
Apache::ParseLog	[reply]
Re: Processing a log file by dominix (Deacon) on Jan 01, 2004 at 05:44 UTC
you have an interresting job done here merlyn's column 42 on this subject, it could be a good starting point, thanks to merlyn -- dominix	[reply]
Re: Processing a log file by naChoZ (Curate) on Jan 01, 2004 at 14:16 UTC
In the interest of not reinventing the wheel, there is also a fine tool that generates graphs and everything. Have a look at webalizer. -- Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. naChoZ	[reply]