LogViewPlus Support » LogViewPlus Support » Help & Support » Sorting of merged log files

Sorting of merged log files

AndreasP — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 07:17:00 GMT

Hi Toby,

I usually work by opening multiple log files by drag and drop and merging them.
In the past the merged log files always were automatically sorted by date/time.
But now I experience problems with the sorting. The merged log files are not sorted anymore automatically.
Can you comment on what's the expected behavior or if the behavior has been changed in the latest release?

Thanks and Regards
Andreas

RE: Sorting of merged log files

LogViewPlus Support — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 07:17:00 GMT

Hi Andreas,

I just wanted to let you know that we have now released LogViewPlus v2.4.31 into BETA. This version includes a fix for the drag / drop / merge issue discussed above. You can download it from: https://www.logviewplus.com/download.html

Thanks again for bringing this problem to my attention. Please let me know if you have any further questions or issues.

Toby

RE: Sorting of merged log files

LogViewPlus Support — Mon, 18 May 2020 12:41:22 GMT

Hi Andreas,

I have now been able to recreate this issue. It seems specific to drag and drop. I will need to take a closer look, but I am sure we can have a fix in for the next release.

Thanks for your help identifying this issue!

Toby

RE: Sorting of merged log files

LogViewPlus Support — Mon, 18 May 2020 10:08:22 GMT

Can you send me an example of that this "%d{yyyy-MM-dd_HH:mm:ss_fff}_%t" looks like in your log file? You are merging two static log files in this case?

Possibly, there is some kind of timezone problem?

RE: Sorting of merged log files

AndreasP — Mon, 18 May 2020 10:05:20 GMT

I use a simple pattern parser.
%d{yyyy-MM-dd_HH:mm:ss_fff}_%t %6p: [%c] %m%n

In the current case I get for the merged log entries:
- From 14.05. ... 18.05
- Then message from 14.05. ... 15.05.

That jump from 18.05 to 14.05. is what's puzzling me.

RE: Sorting of merged log files

LogViewPlus Support — Mon, 18 May 2020 09:18:15 GMT

Can you give me more detail on what the sorting problem looks like and how you are parsing the files? Maybe the date parse isn't accurate enough for the sort to work effectively?

Thanks,

Toby

RE: Sorting of merged log files

AndreasP — Mon, 18 May 2020 09:16:11 GMT

Hi Toby,

99% of the time I work with static log files (copied from the target system to my machine). Also in this case.
The log files were from a few days ago.

Regards
Andreas

RE: Sorting of merged log files

LogViewPlus Support — Mon, 18 May 2020 08:36:25 GMT

Hi Andreas,

I would expect merged files to be sorted. However, for performance reasons, we do not re-sort log entries after they are loaded.

For static log files, this shouldn't be a problem. However, if you are tailing multiple files and those files have timestamps that are significantly out of sync you may notice sorting inconsistencies. Imagine a merged log file with a million records over the past hour. What do you do with a brand new record with a timestamp from 30 minutes ago? LogViewPlus identifies this as a 'new' log entry and writes it to the bottom of the view.

We could sort the record into the view, but this would have a noticeable performance impact and - worse - you might never know that the new record was written. It would be lost in the sort.

Could this be what you are experiencing?

As a work-around, if you need the records sorted you can always sort the grid manually.

Hope that helps,

Toby