I am looking for a code that will read a generic log file (say strace
output,syslog,etc) and convert each line into an S-expression
preferably in C/Perl.

The user provides the delimiter (default is a space) and we tokenize a
given line of input in the logfile based on it and store it as one
S-Expression.

Let me know if I was unclear in asking this question.

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Request for Question Clarification by mathtalk-ga on 12 Oct 2004 16:58 PDT

Hi, padmapani-ga:

Perhaps the only unclearness is in my understanding, but if the input
line is tokenized, one possible S-expression that could be formed is a
simple parenthesized list of those tokens.

I'd guess that you expect something more, but I'll await your
clarification of the requirements.

regards, mathtalk-ga

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Clarification of Question by padmapani-ga on 12 Oct 2004 19:18 PDT

Yes.You are right.I forgot to add the constraint that we need to match
a particular "text" given by the user with the requisite attributes.

For example consider the log file of the format

<time_stamp> <freq> <Event> <counter> <misc>

Say I only wanna collect <time_stamp> and <Event> or any such
arbitrary combination to produce the output
----------
(time_stamp       Event)

This should be fairly trivial too but next comes the toughest part

Similarly for a row like data consider
---------
StartRead(1,2);
InterruptsOff();
CacheHit();
CallFunction(Test);
StopRead(1,2)
InterruptsOn();
--------------

Now I wanna get a S-Expression that captures all events happening
between StartRead and StopRead with the output
---------
( begin (StartRead (1,2)) (InterruptsOff) (CacheHit)
(CallFunction(Test)) (StopRead (1,2))

I apologise for not letting you know this before.

Glad to Talk to you again MathTalk...

-Paddy