CSVlog vs tabs

Andrew Dunstan wrote:

Now that we've fixed the partial/interleaved log line issue, I have
returned to trying toi get the CSV log patch into shape. Sadly, it still
needs lots of work, even after Greg Smith and I both attacked it, so I
am now going through it with a fine tooth comb.

One issue I notice is that it mangles the log message to add a tab
character before each newline. We do this in standard text logs to make
them more readable for humans. but the whole point of having CSV logs is
to make them machine readable, and I'm rather inclined to think this
sort of behaviour is both unnecessary and undesirable. So I'm intending
to leave it out for CSV logs.

Comments?

I would agree. The only thing we need is whatever the CSV delimiter.

Joshua D. Drake

cheers

andrew

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Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:

One issue I notice is that it mangles the log message to add a tab
character before each newline. We do this in standard text logs to make
them more readable for humans. but the whole point of having CSV logs is
to make them machine readable, and I'm rather inclined to think this
sort of behaviour is both unnecessary and undesirable. So I'm intending
to leave it out for CSV logs.

Right, the tabs are only there to disambiguate the plain-text format.

regards, tom lane

Andrew Dunstan wrote:

Now that we've fixed the partial/interleaved log line issue, I have
returned to trying toi get the CSV log patch into shape. Sadly, it still
needs lots of work, even after Greg Smith and I both attacked it, so I
am now going through it with a fine tooth comb.

One issue I notice is that it mangles the log message to add a tab
character before each newline. We do this in standard text logs to make
them more readable for humans. but the whole point of having CSV logs is
to make them machine readable, and I'm rather inclined to think this
sort of behaviour is both unnecessary and undesirable. So I'm intending
to leave it out for CSV logs.

Comments?

With tab characters in the log, the user has to only enable csvlog to
have both machine and human readable logs. The user can use the csvlog
always and use it for human reading and load it into the database only
if he wants it for further analysis. That was my original intention anyway.

(Also as I wrote the patch some time ago, I forgot how the loaded log
gets displayed after a select. If it gets displayed with the tabs, then
isn't it desirable that way as well?)

Rgds,
Arul Shaji

FAST PostgreSQL wrote:

Andrew Dunstan wrote:

Now that we've fixed the partial/interleaved log line issue, I have
returned to trying toi get the CSV log patch into shape. Sadly, it
still needs lots of work, even after Greg Smith and I both attacked
it, so I am now going through it with a fine tooth comb.

One issue I notice is that it mangles the log message to add a tab
character before each newline. We do this in standard text logs to
make them more readable for humans. but the whole point of having CSV
logs is to make them machine readable, and I'm rather inclined to
think this sort of behaviour is both unnecessary and undesirable. So
I'm intending to leave it out for CSV logs.

Comments?

With tab characters in the log, the user has to only enable csvlog to
have both machine and human readable logs. The user can use the csvlog
always and use it for human reading and load it into the database only
if he wants it for further analysis. That was my original intention
anyway.

I think it's more important to have the machine readable version not
embelish the query in any way.

(Also as I wrote the patch some time ago, I forgot how the loaded log
gets displayed after a select. If it gets displayed with the tabs,
then isn't it desirable that way as well?)

I don't think tabs will help that much. In psql, expanded output mode is
likely to be better anyway.

cheers

andrew