Getting Data In

Json event breaking not working as expected

kishor_pinjarka
Path Finder

Original log:

[{"username": "xxx", "event": "session_start", "event_category": "session", "timestamp": "2019-12-11 08:26:23.547000+00:00", "context_ip": "xxx", "context_page_referrer": "xxx", "context_page_url": "xxx", "context_page_search": null, "context_user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36", "context_data": null, "response": null}, {"username": "xxx", "event": "session_start", "event_category": "session", "timestamp": "2019-12-11 12:53:32.350000+00:00", "context_ip": "xxx", "context_page_referrer": null, "context_page_url": "xxx", "context_page_search": null, "context_user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36", "context_data": null, "response": null}]

Expected logs:

{"username": "xxx", "event": "session_start", "event_category": "session", "timestamp": "2019-12-11 08:26:23.547000+00:00", "context_ip": "xxx", "context_page_referrer": "xxx", "context_page_url": "xxx", "context_page_search": null, "context_user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36", "context_data": null, "response": null} 

{"username": "xxx", "event": "session_start", "event_category": "session", "timestamp": "2019-12-11 12:53:32.350000+00:00", "context_ip": "xxx", "context_page_referrer": null, "context_page_url": "xxx", "context_page_search": null, "context_user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36", "context_data": null, "response": null}

Currently my used props.conf is:

[xxx]
SHOULD_LINEMERGE=true
NO_BINARY_CHECK=true
CHARSET=UTF-8
SEDCMD-remove_prefix=s/\[//g
SEDCMD-remove_suffix=s/\]//g
SEDCMD-removeeventcommas=s/}, {"username":/}{"username":/g
BREAK_ONLY_BEFORE=\{\"username\"                              <-- This one is not working

Output I am getting using above props.conf"

{"username": "xxx", "event": "session_start", "event_category": "session", "timestamp": "2019-12-11 08:26:23.547000+00:00", "context_ip": "xxx", "context_page_referrer": "xxx", "context_page_url": "xxx", "context_page_search": null, "context_user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36", "context_data": null, "response": null}{"username": "xxx", "event": "session_start", "event_category": "session", "timestamp": "2019-12-11 12:53:32.350000+00:00", "context_ip": "xxx", "context_page_referrer": null, "context_page_url": "xxx", "context_page_search": null, "context_user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36", "context_data": null, "response": null}

I am doing these validation while uploading sample log file from WebUI and during 2nd configuration page of Add Data I am doing this testing.

What I am missing?

Tags (2)
0 Karma

woodcock
Esteemed Legend

Use ONLY this (do not add any of the stuff that I dropped back in):

[xxx]
SHOULD_LINEMERGE=false
LINE_BREAKER = ((?:(?:^|\][\r\n]+)\[)|,\s+)\{"username"
NO_BINARY_CHECK=true
CHARSET=UTF-8
SEDCMD-remove_suffix=s/]//g

Never, EVER use SHOULD_LINEMERGE = true and the BREAK_* junk. I have only ever seen 1 time where it was necessary.

0 Karma

FrankVl
Ultra Champion

I'd recommend using explicit LINE_BREAKER and SHOULD_LINEMERGE=false. That is much more predictable and is also more performant.

Something like this should work for your data:

LINE_BREAKER = ([\r\n]*\[|,\s+)\{"username":
SHOULD_LINEMERGE=false

This also automatically takes care of stripping the leading [ or , in between records. Only SEDCMD needed is stripping of the trailing ]. See: https://regex101.com/r/8zGyMS/1

Note: SEDCMD applies after line breaking.

0 Karma
Got questions? Get answers!

Join the Splunk Community Slack to learn, troubleshoot, and make connections with fellow Splunk practitioners in real time!

Meet up IRL or virtually!

Join Splunk User Groups to connect and learn in-person by region or remotely by topic or industry.

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

index This | What kind of room has no doors?

IndexEducation Cover Art Banner Cisco.png August 2026 Edition  Hayyy Splunk Education Enthusiasts and the ...

Optimize AI at Scale: Must-Attend Observability Sessions at .conf26

conf26   With nearly 70 breakout sessions on the docket, the .conf26 Observability track is designed to help ...

How much can you really learn in 3 minutes?

Observability can certainly be hard to understand – there's a lot of jargon and buzzwords and it seems to ...