I need to parse some text from a log file and I was wondering what if there was a prefered scripting language for this. I need something that will grab timestamps, string processing, and do numerical operations, nothing too fancy.

I know Java and PHP, but I was curious if anyone would think Perl, Python, Tcl, or C# would be better. Thanks.

9/10/2007 3:00:04 PM

Also FYI i will be developing and executing the scripts on Windows.

9/10/2007 3:01:24 PM

what's the project?


out of curiosity.

9/10/2007 3:07:47 PM

perl

9/10/2007 3:16:52 PM

agree with Perl

9/10/2007 3:19:12 PM

perl </thread>

9/10/2007 6:01:17 PM

perl

9/10/2007 6:11:34 PM

Perl

Though realistically PHP can do everything you need and since you already know it, you might as well use it.

9/10/2007 6:16:36 PM

since it's windows and you know php, stick to that.

Just install the CGI package, and go run it. I STILL use php for random command line scripting all the time in windows, it's really light-weight and powerful

9/10/2007 6:53:47 PM

perl is the traditional choice but i agree with those who say use php. you already know it, and it can do pretty much everything

9/10/2007 7:10:32 PM

perl

9/10/2007 9:12:26 PM

you'd have more fun with ruby

9/10/2007 9:27:59 PM

Agreed with stein, noen, and qntmfred.

9/10/2007 9:51:48 PM

perl

its a good langauge to know and it excels at text parsing. Learning something new (and brushing up on regex's) is never a bad idea.

9/10/2007 10:04:21 PM

ruby

9/10/2007 11:38:04 PM

you can more than likely do what you need to do with regular batch commands, possibly with the addition of regular resource kits. if you exceed the limitations of batch, perl/awk/python would be my choice, mainly because I don't know php

9/11/2007 12:20:09 AM

Thats a retarded idea as he'd be doing the same amount of work writing 10 lines of batch and pipe commands as 10 lines of perl.

I would use Perl, avoid Tcl or python and certainly PHP for this task.

9/11/2007 12:58:21 AM

python ftw

9/11/2007 1:37:51 AM

yes, clearly, working with what windows comes with while maintaining the same code efficiency is a retarded idea

9/11/2007 2:00:26 AM

fyi guys, for text parsing, perl and php are like 90% interchangeable.

Also, not that he would even care to do this, but if you run the code through zend, it's also a good bit faster than perl.

9/11/2007 2:38:24 AM

python

9/11/2007 7:19:17 AM

without even reading this thread

just reading the title "suggest a language for parsing a text file"

the only answer is perl

9/11/2007 10:19:21 AM

QBasic or Pascal.

9/11/2007 11:49:18 AM

PARSING TEXT    > REGULAR EXPRESSIONS

The language you use doesn't even matter. Regular expressions are powerful and versatile and designed SPECIFICALLY TO FACILITATE PARSING TEXT!

9/11/2007 5:23:41 PM

Assembly

9/11/2007 5:54:14 PM

^ oh, word. that shit rocks. you can use the RISC emulator from ECE 206.

9/11/2007 6:13:29 PM

^^^yes it does, because not all languages support regex. luckily php and perl do, and use almost the same standards

9/11/2007 6:38:12 PM

I tried doing some regex stuff once, and it made my head explode.

9/11/2007 6:40:45 PM

Quote :

"python ftw"

9/11/2007 7:23:44 PM

^ traitor

9/11/2007 7:24:54 PM

Quote :

"yes it does, because not all languages support regex. luckily php and perl do, and use almost the same standards"

i was understating when i said it doesn't matter. i meant go with whatever he felt comfortable with, because PHP, Perl, C and most common languages support RegEx. Shit, even VB does

And as for languages that don't support it natively there are RegEx extensions for any language you would consider actually parsing text with.

9/11/2007 7:47:47 PM

COBOL always wins my vote




[Edited on September 11, 2007 at 8:19 PM. Reason : PARSE STRINGPART FROM STRINGTOTAL]

9/11/2007 8:17:50 PM

c supports regular expressions natively?

[Edited on September 11, 2007 at 8:51 PM. Reason : like the posix regex stuff or what]

9/11/2007 8:49:26 PM

To say that C supports regexp is really a stretch. To say that some implementations of the C stdlib have limited support for some form of regular expressions would be much more accurate.

I think a lot of people struggle with the difference between a programming language and a platform. That being said...it's interesting to see the difference b/w people who have grown up with mostly VM-based language platforms.

9/11/2007 10:18:32 PM

perl >>>> *

9/11/2007 10:22:45 PM

brainfuck.

http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/Brainfuck/

9/11/2007 10:45:23 PM

Speaking of Perl

i was looking something up, and found this research into number theory

do any of you remember Carl Sagan's Contact? You wont believe the pattern that's been found

-----------begin Perl code here---------------

$maxerrors = 220; # needs tuning
$pi = reverse "3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592
30781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535
94081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284
75648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724
58700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138
41469519415116094330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627
49567351885752724891227938183011949129833673362440656643086021394946395224737190
70217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846766940513200056812714526356082778
57713427577896091736371787214684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420
19956112129021960864034418159813629774771309960518707211349999998372978049951059
73173281609631859502445945534690830264252230825334468503526193118817101000313783
87528865875332083814206171776691473035982534904287554687311595628638823537820166
73231564231563231874231873231284231283236583236973236472239231011673231564231563
23287323187423128323128323158423158323197423197323147723923101167323656323187123
18722318742352832315842315832319742319732314772392310116732315642315632318722318
71231873231284231283231584231583231974231973231477239231011674234564231873232873
23628323158423158323697323147723923301723923101667323128423128323696823108823101
16742312832312882319682310882310116742352862339642350882310116732312842312882319
63231084231088231011673236283236963236088234016963231274231276231482231011963231
27423127623148223101923396323627623148223101196323127423127623148223101696323127
423127423548101";

while ($offset  <   length($pi)) {
        my($x)  =   substr($pi, $offset +++ 0, 2);
        my($y)  =   substr($pi, $offset +++ 1, 1); # XXX should be 3?
        my($z)  =   substr($pi, $offset +++ 2, 1);
        if ($x  *   cos($y) / cos($z)) {
                  $dbg .= chr ($x) x $y;
                  if (++$errors >= $maxerrors) {
                           # "cannot happen"
                           die("$dbg\n");
                  }
        }
}
# passes sig test
print("ok!\n");

9/12/2007 2:45:56 AM

TTTTT    H    H   EEEEEE
  T      H    H   E
  T      HHHHHH   EEE
  T      H    H   E
  T      H    H   EEEEEE



        PPPPPP   EEEEEE   RRRRRR   L
        P    P   E        R    R   L
        PPPPP    EEE      RRRRR    L
        P        E        R   R    L
        P        EEEEEE   R    R   LLLLLL



                J   OOOOOO   U    U   RRRRRR   NN   N    AAAA    L
                J   O    O   U    U   R    R   N N  N   A    A   L
                J   O    O   U    U   RRRRR    N  N N   AAAAAA   L
                J   O    O   U    U   R   R    N   NN   A    A   L
           JJJJJJ   OOOOOO   UUUUUU   R    R   N    N   A    A   LLLLLL

9/12/2007 7:00:27 AM