Splunk Search

Bitfield lookup

sbsbb
Builder

I have a field in the logs, that is a Bit-field.
Is there a way, a function to translate those field in a human readable mvfield ?

Here is a bitfield translation example :
1 test1
2 test2
4 test3
8 test4

What I would like, is a way to translate "3" in "test1,test2)

I would enjoy a | bitlookup bittranslation.csv bitfield
But I guess I would have seen it already, if there were one 😉

0 Karma
1 Solution

sciurus
Path Finder

Extract using math:

  • divide by 2^n to shift the value right by n bits
  • modulo by 2 to get the low bit

|stats count | eval bitfield = 5 | eval numfield1=(bitfield % 2) | eval numfield2 = floor(bitfield / 2) % 2 | eval numfield3 = floor(bitfield / 4) % 2

or...

Extracting with a CSV:

|stats count | eval bitfield = 5 | lookup bitlookup.csv bitfield OUTPUT bitnames | makemv delim="|" bitnames

$ cat bitlookup.csv

bitfield,bitnames
0,b0
1,b1
2,b2
3,b1|b2
4,b4
5,b1|b4
6,b2|b4
7,b1|b2|b4
8,b8
9,b1|b8
10,b2|b8
11,b1|b2|b8
12,b4|b8
13,b1|b4|b8
14,b2|b4|b8
15,b1|b2|b4|b8

View solution in original post

0 Karma

sciurus
Path Finder

Extract using math:

  • divide by 2^n to shift the value right by n bits
  • modulo by 2 to get the low bit

|stats count | eval bitfield = 5 | eval numfield1=(bitfield % 2) | eval numfield2 = floor(bitfield / 2) % 2 | eval numfield3 = floor(bitfield / 4) % 2

or...

Extracting with a CSV:

|stats count | eval bitfield = 5 | lookup bitlookup.csv bitfield OUTPUT bitnames | makemv delim="|" bitnames

$ cat bitlookup.csv

bitfield,bitnames
0,b0
1,b1
2,b2
3,b1|b2
4,b4
5,b1|b4
6,b2|b4
7,b1|b2|b4
8,b8
9,b1|b8
10,b2|b8
11,b1|b2|b8
12,b4|b8
13,b1|b4|b8
14,b2|b4|b8
15,b1|b2|b4|b8
0 Karma

Ayn
Legend

Use MATH

bitfield = 2^(x-1)

(because your first bitfield is not 0 but 1, hence the x-1 instead of x)
So,

x-1 = log2(bitfield)

And finally

x = log2(bitfield)+1

So when bitfield is 8, log2(bitfield) is 3, and so x = 3+1 = 4.

eval has the log(number,base) function that you can use for doing this.

... | eval numfield=log(bitfield,2)+1

sbsbb
Builder

If I have a bit field set to 3, that means that I have the bit 1 and 2 set. That why I need a function to check what bits are set

0 Karma

Ayn
Legend

Well my understanding of the bitfield is that it would always be a 2 exponent? So it'd follow the pattern 1,2,4,8,16,32,...

In that case bitfield will never be 3.

0 Karma

sbsbb
Builder

I'm not sure to understand,
I've tried
|stats count | eval bitfield=3 | eval numfield=log(bitfield,2)+1

and I get numfield=2.58

I would need something like numfield=(1;2)..

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!

Cisco Data Fabric from Architecture to Investigation, Better SOC Visibility, and More ...

Splunk Lantern is Splunk’s customer success center that provides practical guidance from Splunk experts on key ...

The Trust Gap: Why a Data Foundation is Fundamental to an Agentic Enterprise

The Trust Gap: Why a data foundation is fundamental to an  Agentic Enterprise.   Agentic AI is transforming ...

Data Management Digest – September 2026

    Welcome to the September 2026 edition of Data Management Digest! September brought a fresh wave of ...