DayZ Logger - detailed character logs

[Axe Cop]

The thing is if you just use the data from your MySQL database you dont have a history, only the current position for every character.

What you can do is a heatmap for all dead characters but only if your never clean the dead chars in the database...

[Aristoi]

The thing is if you just use the data from your MySQL database you dont have a history, only the current position for every character.

What you can do is a heatmap for all dead characters but only if your never clean the dead chars in the database...

I might not have been clear enough, but that's not what I was suggesting.  You could easily build a history table within the database itself based on a trigger or an event that runs as desired and takes a snapshot of player locations into another table, then builds off that.  My only thought would that it might be more easy to build heatmaps from a history table in MySQL than flat files.

[Axe Cop]

well tbh it is easier to read my plain log files than connect to a database to get all the data if you need to go through it all anyway.

and a major reason I've decided to log to plain files instead of a database is simple, mysql or relational SQL databases in general are not made for massive data..

no good logging solution saves logging data to a database, why do you think most programs save simple log files, it's just better. even if it doesnt look like that to you :D

 

there are other options of course, like big data clusters or object databases or whatever but this is a simple logger and you can open my log files even with Microsoft Excel and analyse it with that (it is simple to open a log file and create a diagram with the humanity change or something in Excel).

I don't know how much programming experience you have, but it really is easy to read data like that for a computer, what might seem to be hard for humans to read :)

 

maybe a quick example for you, the following is java code with google guava lib to make it easier, but look how little code it is to read the data from my log file:

for (String line : Files.readLines(new File("12345678.log"))) {
	List<String> data = Splitter.on(';').splitToList(line);
	String timestamp = data.at(0);
	String charId = data.at(1);
	String wordSpace = data.at(4);
	int humanity = Integer.parseInt(data.at(8));
	// do something with the data
}

that opens the log file "12345678.log" and extracts some sample data like the timestamp, char id, wolrdspace coordinates and humanity.. after that you can do whatever you want with the data and i assure you it won't get much easier with SQL queries or whatever, don't you think? :P

If you want to read all log files in a folder just add another loop around that to read all files in the log folder and you are good.. just a quick example how "easy" it is to read the data and then you can draw it on a map or whatever you wanna do with it :)

 

btw another reason to prefer log files over a database is you can easily archive the files and just zip it every week (or month whatever) and save it somewhere.. :)

[Aristoi]

I'm a programmer by trade, so I never said it could not be done from a log file.  Most programs save log files to flat text because it is simplest.

 

I don't know why you're arguing against my database suggestion so hard (archiving is not difficult in a database).  I work in databases every day that have massive amounts of data in them and you might be surprised what you can do there.

 

That said, when you add heatmaps to your logging, I'll use them however you code them.  And if I write my own heatmap (still a great idea!), I'll do it however it works for me.

[Axe Cop]

Sure do your own tools, I think DayZ and Epoch can use some more good tools for admins and it doesnt seem like there are so many developers here in the forums. I just do my tools and scripts for fun, actually I would say it is more work releasing my stuff and doing "support" for it instead of just keeping them for my own server.. But I like to constribute stuff to the community.

[Aristoi]

You're right, so let me circle back around to my main point, which is THANK YOU for taking the time to make this logging tool, releasing it, and actually providing support.  Much appreciated!

[korwin]

maybe it's stupid question, but what tool do you use to somehow parse logs into readable format?

[Axe Cop]

maybe it's stupid question, but what tool do you use to somehow parse logs into readable format?

did you read post #28 (4 above yours..)? :D

There are no tools, and it is heavily dependent what you want to achieve with the logs (meaning what data you want to look at).

so it's not easy to write a general tool that can do that and 1000x easier to write a few line of code to extract the data you actually want and display it (or just use Excel :P )