Re^2: YAML for logs?

Personally I hate YAML because I find it impossible to edit by hand even though people keep assuring me that it's designed for that. They're liars, all. I've found I nearly always need a computer to write the YAML for me. It's a stupid, stupid language and somehow, for some strange reason, it's the fad right now. It makes me want to puke on my shoes.

I respect your opinion very much so I'll take into account and for sure do not disregard it with an "I don't agree" a priori. I may concede on the writing bit, and indeed it seems to me that it should be easy, but I've not really done that. Seriously, I mean. But here I was more focusing on the reading bit. For example, these are the last five lines for my (Apache's) access_log at http://blazar.perlmonk.org/:

66.37.83.53 - - [24/Nov/2006:14:06:11 -0500] "GET /tmp/tesi.cls HTTP/1
+.1" 200 3104 "http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.text.tex/brows
+e_thread/thread/674424ec76ee82eb/c3db89593b6c9774" "Mozilla/5.0 (Maci
+ntosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Saf
+ari/419.3"
66.37.83.53 - - [24/Nov/2006:14:06:12 -0500] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.
+1" 404 293 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWeb
+Kit/418.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3"
66.249.72.12 - - [24/Nov/2006:19:40:38 -0500] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.
+1" 404 627 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.g
+oogle.com/bot.html)"
66.249.72.12 - - [24/Nov/2006:19:40:38 -0500] "GET /tmp/tesi.cls HTTP/
+1.1" 200 3104 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://ww
+w.google.com/bot.html)"
64.242.88.60 - - [24/Nov/2006:23:13:04 -0500] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.
+1" 404 292 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 compatible ZyBorg/1.0 (wn-14.zyborg@looks
+mart.net; http://www.WISEnutbot.com)"
[download]

If I run them through

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Parse::AccessLogEntry;
use YAML::Syck;

my $p=Parse::AccessLogEntry->new;
chomp, print Dump $p->parse($_) while <>;

__END__
[download]

I get the following, which is only marginally more verbose than the original, but in a way that clears up the meaning of things, and IMHO largely more readable.

--- 
agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9 
+(KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3
bytes: 3104
code: 200
date: 24/Nov/2006
diffgmt: -0500
file: /tmp/tesi.cls
host: 66.37.83.53
proto: HTTP/1.1
refer: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.text.tex/browse_thread
+/thread/674424ec76ee82eb/c3db89593b6c9774
rtype: GET
time: 14:06:11
user: "-"
--- 
agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9 
+(KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3
bytes: 293
code: 404
date: 24/Nov/2006
diffgmt: -0500
file: /favicon.ico
host: 66.37.83.53
proto: HTTP/1.1
refer: "-"
rtype: GET
time: 14:06:12
user: "-"
--- 
agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/
+bot.html)
bytes: 627
code: 404
date: 24/Nov/2006
diffgmt: -0500
file: /robots.txt
host: 66.249.72.12
proto: HTTP/1.1
refer: "-"
rtype: GET
time: 19:40:38
user: "-"
--- 
agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/
+bot.html)
bytes: 3104
code: 200
date: 24/Nov/2006
diffgmt: -0500
file: /tmp/tesi.cls
host: 66.249.72.12
proto: HTTP/1.1
refer: "-"
rtype: GET
time: 19:40:38
user: "-"
--- 
agent: Mozilla/4.0 compatible ZyBorg/1.0 (wn-14.zyborg@looksmart.net; 
+http://www.WISEnutbot.com)
bytes: 292
code: 404
date: 24/Nov/2006
diffgmt: -0500
file: /robots.txt
host: 64.242.88.60
proto: HTTP/1.1
refer: "-"
rtype: GET
time: 23:13:04
user: "-"
[download]

I can imagine further "advantages" if some hierarachical info were to be included.

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Re^3: YAML for logs? by diotalevi (Canon) on Nov 25, 2006 at 18:29 UTC
I'm bitchy about YAML purely because of the last dozen times I tried writing some by hand, I failed because YAML syntax is more obscure than my current understanding. I recall going to the YAML web site to find a quick description but there was just a big reference doc and that was more overhead than I wanted. YAML is supposed to be simple, right? Well it's not. Actually, I don't think YAML is supposed to be simple. I'd rather write my data in Perl or lisp. The former is common to everyon here and the latter is so simple that any moron can write it. ⠤⠤ ⠙⠊⠕⠞⠁⠇⠑⠧⠊	[reply]
Re^4: YAML for logs? by clinton (Priest) on Nov 25, 2006 at 19:55 UTC
The docs are rather weighty. What I used as an introduction to the syntax was Ingy's YAML docs (see YAML Terminology)	[reply]