Need help understanding Appending to Lookup file

[neerajs_81]

Hi All,
I have the below search.  I am being told it appends results to a lookup table called user_ids.   

index=ad earliest=-15d
|stats latest(_time) as _time, latest(profile.department) as bunit, latest(profile.legacyUsername) as legacyUsername, latest(profile.userType) as category by userID
| append [|inputlookup user_ids]

In all the posts i have seen so far, people recommend using outputlookup command to append  

Can someone pls explain  how does append [|inputlookup user_identities]  end up appending  in my case ? How is this different than 

| outputlookup append=true user_ids.csv 

[gcusello · Accepted solution]

Hi @neerajs_81,

the append command is use to append the results of a subsearch (also from a lookup) to the results of the main search.

If I correctly understood, you need to append the results of a search to a lookup, if this is correct, you have to use the outputlookup.

You can find information about both the commands at 

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.2.4/SearchReference/Append 

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.2.4/SearchReference/Outputlookup

Ciao.

Giuseppe

[neerajs_81]

Thanks. So in my search what does 

| append [|inputlookup user_ids]

achieve?   Is it appending the results to that user_ids lookup file ? 

[gcusello]

Hi @neerajs_81,

no it appends the rows of the lookup TO your search results, not To the lookup!

In other words: "| append [|inputlookup user_ids]" appends FROM user_id.csv not TO this lookup.

Ciao.

Giuseppe