README
1Apache::ParseLog
2- Object-oriented Perl extension for parsing Apache log files
3
4
5DESCRIPTION
6
7Apache::ParseLog provides an easy way to parse the Apache log files,
8using an object-oriented constructs. The data obtained using this
9module are generic enough that it is flexible to use the data for
10your own applications, such as CGI, simple text-only report generater,
11feeding RDBMS, data for Perl/Tk-based GUI application, etc.
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13
14FEATURES
15
161 Easy and Portable Log-Parsing Methods
17
18Because all the work (parsing logs, constructing regex, matching and
19assigning to variables, etc.) is done inside this module, you can easily
20create log reports (unless your logs need intense scrutiny). Read on this
21manpage as well as the the section on EXAMPLES section to see how easy it
22is to create log reports with this module.
23
24Also, this module does not require C compiler, and it can (should) run on
25any platforms supported by Perl.
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272 Support for LogFormat/CustomLog
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29The Apache Web Server 1.3.x's new LogForamt/CustomLog feature (with
30mod_log_config) is supported.
31
32The log format specified with Apache's LogFormat directive in the
33httpd.conf file will be parsed and the regular expressions will be
34created dynamically inside this module, so re-writing your existing code
35will be minimal when the log format is changed.
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373 Reports on Unique Visitor Counts
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39Tranditionally, the hit count is calculated based on the number of files
40requested by visitors (the simplest is the the total number of lines of
41the log file calculated as the "total hit").
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43As such, the hit count obviously can be misleading in the sense of
44"how many visitors who actually visited to my site?", especially if the
45pages of your site contain many images (because each image is counted
46as one hit).
47
48Apache::ParseLog provides the methods to obtain such traditional data,
49because those data also are very important for monitoring your web site's
50activities. However, this module also provides the methods to obtain
51the unique visitor counts, i.e., the actual number of "people" (well,
52IP or hostname) who visited your site, by date, time, and date and time.
53
54See the the section on LOG OBJECT METHODS for details about those methods.
55
564 Pre-Compiled Regex
57
58The new pre-compiled regex feature introduced by Perl 5.005 is used (if
59you have the version installed on your machine).
60
61For the pre-compiled regex and the new quote-like assignment operator (qr),
62see perlop(1) and perlre(1) manpages.
63
64
65PREREQUISITES
66
67You will need Perl 5.004 or later. To use the pre-compiled regex, you will
68need 5.005 or later.
69
70Although this package names may suggest, the mod_perl as well as any other
71Apache::* modules are not necessary.
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73
74INSTALLATION
75
76The same as any perl modules:
77
78 perl Makefile.PL
79 make
80 make test
81 make install
82
83The Makefile.PL script will check the version of your perl, and if it is
84newer than 5.005, it rewrites the ParseLog.pm file for the 5.005-compatible
85version. For some reasons, if you need to rewrite the ParseLog.pm back to
86the distributed version (5.004-compatible), run the command (note the option)
87
88 perl Makefile.PL -r
89
90Running this will rewrite the ParseLog.pm to the 5.004 version.
91
92
93DOCUMENTATION
94
95If you want to read the manpage before you install, you can use perldoc to
96read the manpage from the ParseLog.pm file, like:
97
98 perldoc -F ParseLog.pm
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100
101TO DO
102
103- Add the support for HTTP header log (%{<header>}x) directive
104 in LogFormat (this actually should be considered as a bug)
105- Add methods that return more analytical data
106
107
108CURRENT VERSION
109
110Current version is 1.02 (10/17/1998)
111
112
113AUTHOR
114
115Akira Hangai (akira@discover-net.net)
116
117Please email with any suggestions, comments, etc. (especially the suggestions
118for methods that return more elaborate data).
119
120
121COPYRIGHT
122
123Copyright 1998 by Akira Hangai. All rights reserved.
124
125This package is free software, and you can redistribute it and/or modify
126it under the same terms as Perl itself.
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