SyslogScan::SyslogEntry(3)

NAME
SyslogScan::SyslogEntry -- parses generic lines in syslog files.

SYNOPSIS
    use SyslogScan::SyslogEntry;
    open(FH,"/var/log/syslog");
    my $entry;
    # reads from filehandle $fh and returns an object
    # of a subclass of SyslogEntry.
    while ($entry = new SyslogScan::SyslogEntry (\*FH))
    {
        # process $entry
    }

DESCRIPTION
All Syslog object share these data structures: month, day, time, machine, executable, tag (optional), content.

For example, if a syslog line looks like:

Jun 13 02:32:27 satellife in.identd[25994]: connect from mail.missouri.edu

then the line returned by 'new SyslogEntry' will return a SyslogEntry-derived object with at least this set of parameters:

 month => Jun,
 day => 13,
 time => 02:32:27,
 machine => satellife,
 executable => in.identd,
 tag => 25994,
 content => connect from mail.missouri.edu,
 unix_time => 834633147,
 raw => Jun 13 02:32:27 satellife in.identd[25994]: connect from mail.missouri.edu
Since the executable is 'in.identd', SyslogEntry.pm will look for a class called "SyslogScan::In_identdLine" derived from SyslogEntry, and attempt to call that class's parseContent method. If no such In_identdLine class is in use, then the returned object is of the default "SyslogScan::UnsupportedEntry" class.

If the In_identdLine class throws a die() exception, SyslogEntry.pm will catch the die() and return a "SyslogScan::BotchedEntry" object containing the exception in "$errorString" and the failed handler in "brokenHandler".

"new SyslogEntry" returns the undefined value if at EOF.

BUGS
In retrospect, this model of passing control to subclasses based on the name of the controlling program doesn't work exceptionally elegantly in perl. I would probably do it more conventionally if I had it to do over again.

AUTHOR and COPYRIGHT
The author (Rolf Harold Nelson) can currently be e-mailed as rolf@usa.healthnet.org.

Thanks to Allen S. Rout for his code contributions.

This code is Copyright (C) SatelLife, Inc. 1996. All rights reserved. This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

In no event shall SatelLife be liable to any party for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use of this software and its documentation (including, but not limited to, lost profits) even if the authors have been advised of the possibility of such damage.

SEE ALSO
the SyslogScan::SendmailLine manpage