This is old news for most developers, but I'm throwing it out there anyway. I've known about Microsoft's LogParser for a long time now, but today is the first time I've actually used it.

I needed to get some quick stats about the usage of some WCF services from an IIS log of an application recently put into production. I downloaded LogParser 2.2, googled and found some examples, experimented with some queries, and within 2 hours had a batch file that was creating two simple text file reports that would quickly tell you about service usage.

Here's the batch file contents I created:

@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto reqparam
@echo on

@echo * Getting total hits per service into %1_ServiceHits.txt

"C:\Program Files\Log Parser 2.2\logparser.exe" -i:iisw3c "SELECT DISTINCT
cs-uri-stem AS Url, COUNT(*) AS Hits INTO %1_ServiceHits.txt FROM %1 WHERE
(cs-uri-stem LIKE '%%.svc') GROUP BY Url ORDER BY Hits DESC" -o:NAT -rtp:-1

@echo * Getting hits per hour into %1_HitsPerHour.txt

"C:\Program Files\Log Parser 2.2\logparser.exe" -i:iisw3c "SELECT date,
QUANTIZE(time, 3600) AS Hour, cs-uri-stem AS Url, COUNT(*) AS Hits INTO
%1_HitsPerHour.txt FROM %1 WHERE (cs-uri-stem LIKE '%%.svc') GROUP BY date,
Hour, Url ORDER BY date, Hour, URL" -o:NAT -rtp:-1

@echo off
goto end
:reqparam
@echo Missing Parameter - IIS log filename
:end

And here's an example of the output:

Url                       Hits 
------------------------- ------
/AwesomeService.svc       208862
/SweetService.svc         133267
/GoodService.svc          41577
/MundaneService.svc       41271
/HappyService.svc         10300
/CrappyService.svc        2950

Just for fun, here's a command that will create a pie chart.

"C:\Program Files\Log Parser 2.2\logparser.exe" -i:iisw3c "SELECT DISTINCT
cs-uri-stem AS Url, COUNT(*) AS Hits INTO c:\temp\iisreport.gif FROM
c:\temp\ex070730.log WHERE (cs-uri-stem LIKE '%.svc') GROUP BY Url ORDER BY Hits
DESC" -chartType:PieExploded3D -chartTitle:"Service Hits"

Which generated this image:

Its a little bit ugly because of the values put in front of the chart, but it wasn't worth it to me to spend the time figuring out which command line option would turn that off.

* PS - I've noticed that the unofficial website for LogParser seems to be down. Bummer.

Labels: tools