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 Analog 6.0:
Frequently asked questions
 Analog 6.0:
Frequently asked questions
This list is divided into six sections:
  - Getting Started
  
- Basic Configuration
  
- Understanding the Output
  
- Advanced Usage
  
- Form Interface
  
- Design Decisions
  - Getting Started
      
 See also Starting to use
      analog.
	- Analog doesn't have a setup.exe.
	
- Analog just flashes up a DOS window and then
	    quits.
	
- When I try and edit analog.cfg,
	    Windows asks me which program I want to use to open that file.
	
- When I try and compile analog, it gives me an
	    error (e.g. on SunOS 5).
	
- Analog didn't write the logfile when I ran
	    it.
	
- Analog won't read extended logfiles generated by
	    IIS.
	    
 or What does "time without
	    date" mean?
- What does "Logfile with ambiguous
	    dates" mean?
	
- I tried to analyse a logfile, but I just got
	    "Large number of corrupt lines."
	
- Analog won't read logfiles bigger than 2GB.
	
- What does this error message mean?
	
- I tried to run analog from my browser, but it
	    didn't work.
      
 
 
- Basic Configuration
      
	- I want to analyse several logfiles together.
	
- I want to make several different statistics
	    pages. Do I have to install several copies of analog?
	
- My analog.cfg included lots of
	    CONFIGFILE commands, but only one output page was
	    produced.
	
- Why does the Daily Report only show the last
	    six weeks?
	
- Why do the time reports all list 0 requests?
	    
 or Why are there no bar charts in the
	    time reports?
- How do I get the Request Report to list files
	    with fewer than 20 requests?
	
- How do I ignore accesses from my site?
	
- How do I ignore internal referrers in the
	    Referrer Report?
	
- How do I get information on just my pages, not
	    everybody's?
	
- How do I list subdirectories not just top-level
	    directories in the Directory Report?
	
- How do I list minor browser versions in the
	    Browser Summary?
	
- I want to see the full hostnames in the
	    Organisation Report.
	
- I used the command "DIREXCLUDE
	    /mydir/", but files in that directory were still
	    listed.
	
- I used the command
	    "FILEEXCLUDE /cgi-bin/script.pl", but that
	    file was still listed in the Request Report.
	
- I used the command "IMAGEDIR
	    C:\analog\images\", but I only got broken images.
	
- I want to put several output pages in the same
	    directory, but the pie charts overwrite each other.
	
- I want a configuration file with all of the
	    possible configuration commands in it.
	
- I want to see your configuration file.
	
- Does the order of the commands matter in the
	    configuration file?
	
- Why are my browser and referrer reports
	    empty?
	
- Why isn't the Referrer Report sorted
	    properly?
	
- I want to list (or not to list) referrers
	    with their search arguments in the Referrer Report.
	
- Why are my click-thru's (or CGI scripts)
	    not listed in the Request Report?
	
- I can't find /script.pl?q=1 in the
	    Request Report.
	
- Why can't I have P in the
	    REQCOLS, REQSORTBY or
	    REQFLOOR?
	
- Can I find out which files each referrer pointed
	    to?
	    
 or Can I find out which files each
	    host has read?
 or Can I find out which hosts have
	    read each file?
 or Can I find out the number of hosts
	    visiting on each day?
 or lots of similar questions.
- Can SETTINGS ON produce a
	    configuration file instead of an English list of settings?
	
- I get the message "logfiles overlap"
	    even though the two logfiles contain completely separate
	    requests.
	
- Can I count the individual visitors, or
	    visits, to my site?
	    
 or Can I see how long visitors spend
	    on my site?
- Can I change the way dates are formatted in the
	    output?
	    
 or Can I change some of the phrases
	    in the output?
- How can I change the background colour of my
	    output?
	    
 or How can I make the output
            prettier?
 
 
- Understanding the Output
      
 See also What the results
      mean.
	- How do I find out the number of hits from your
	    data?
	
- Why are there so many referrers from my own
	    site?
	
- The analysis covers exactly a week, but the
	    figures for the last seven days don't agree with the totals.
	
- I only have 240 requests in total. Why does
	    analog think there are 840 requests per week?
	
- The pie charts don't agree with the figures in
	    the tables.
	
- Why doesn't analog agree with the counter on my
	    page?
	
- Why doesn't analog agree with grepping the
	    logfile?
	
- Why doesn't analog agree with my other logfile
	    analysis program?
	
- Why do I only get "unresolved numerical
	    addresses" in the Domain Report?
	
- Why are directories listed in the Request
	    Report?
	
- When someone reads one of my PDF files, it
	    scores dozens of hits.
	
- Kilobytes should be 1000 bytes, not 1024
	    bytes.
	
- The Organisation Report doesn't identify
	    organisations correctly.
	
- "Organization" isn't spelled
	    correctly.
      
 
 
- Advanced Usage
      
	- How can I do such-and-such with a command line
	    option?
	
- I want a list of all command line arguments.
	
- How do I list all numerical subdomains to depth
	    2 in the Domain Report?
	
- I want to be able to count requests with status
	    code 301 and 302 as successes, so that they appear in the Request
	    Report.
	
- I want to report on a field analog doesn't know
	    about.
	
- Can analog analyse Squid proxy logfiles?
	
- Can analog analyse FTP logfiles?
	    
 or Can analog analyse streaming media
	    logfiles?
- Can analog analyse other logfiles, such as mail
	    logs, or the syslog?
	
- How can I run analog automatically every day?
	
- How can I automatically email the results to
	    myself or someone else?
	
- I'm setting up IIS. Which logfile format should
	    I use?
	
- I host lots of virtual domains. How should I set
	    up analog?
	
- Can I make several output pages with just one
	    run of analog?
	
- I ran out of memory when trying to run
	    analog. What can I do?
	
- You're processing 20,000,000 requests in under
	    10 minutes. Why is mine much slower?
	    
 or Analog appears to stall.
- How do I make a link on my page that runs
	    analog?
	
- Do I have to save all my old logfiles?
	    
 or Can analog make statistics from
	    old reports instead of reading the whole logfile again?
- Can analog write to a database or
	    spreadsheet?
      
 
 
- Form Interface
      
 See also Form
      troubleshooting.
	- I couldn't make the form run.
	
- How can I specify different logfiles from the
	    form interface?
	
- My browser showed me anlgform.pl, rather than
	    running it.
	
- Why does the form interface give "Document
	    Returned no Data"?
	
- The images don't appear when running analog from
	    the form interface.
	
- Why do I get some reports that weren't requested
	    on the form?
	
- How do I make a link to anlgform.pl
	    without using anlgform.html?
	
- Is there a form interface not using Perl
	    (e.g. ASP or .exe)?
      
 
 
- Design Decisions
      
	- Why doesn't the HEADERFILE replace
	    the whole <head> of the output file?
	
- Why don't you just use one image, and scale it
	    with the width and height attributes?
	
- In the XHTML output, why not just put a class= on
	each <COL> instead of on each cell?
	
- Why doesn't the OUTFILE command
	    automatically create the directory for the output file?
	
- Why not automatically spot robots by whether
	    they request /robots.txt?
	
- Why not just do DNS resolution of the hosts that
	    actually make it into the Host Report?
	
- Couldn't you do the DNS lookups faster with
	    threads?
	
- Why doesn't analog analyse the error_log?
	
- My server lists local names in the logfile. Can
	    you put a common suffix on them automatically?
	
- Can you extrapolate from the current month's
	    partial data to produce a prediction for the whole month, based on
	    the rate so far?
	
- Can you extend the Domain Report to say which US
	    states people visited from?
	
- Please distinguish between the different BSDs
	    in the Operating System Report.
	
- Why not use language codes instead of country
	    codes for the names of the language files?
	
- Why doesn't analog produce statistics on
	    "visits"?
	
- Why don't you sell analog?
      
 
Most questions in this category are answered in the section entitled
Starting to use analog. If you can't get
analog running you should look there.
  - Analog doesn't have a setup.exe.
      
 No, and it doesn't need one. It's already ready to run! See
      Starting to use analog under
      Windows.
- Analog just flashes up a DOS window and then
      quits.
      
 This is the correct behaviour. It should have created an output page
      called Report.html. See Starting
      to use analog under Windows.
- When I try and edit analog.cfg,
      Windows asks me which program I want to use to open that file.
      
 Use Notepad, or any other plain text editor.
- When I try and compile analog, it gives me an
      error (e.g. on SunOS 5).
      
 Maybe you need to edit the Makefile. There are some
      platform-specific notes in the section
      Starting to use analog on other
      platforms, and in the Makefile itself.
- Analog didn't write the logfile when I ran
      it.
      
 Analog doesn't write the logfiles. Your web server writes the
      logfiles, and analog just reads them. See
      Starting to use analog.
- Analog won't read extended logfiles generated by
      IIS.
      
 or What does "time without date" mean?
 By default, IIS writes the date only at the top of the
      logfile, not on
      every line. But it doesn't write a new date if the date changes during
      the logfile, so analog can't tell which date later entries in the log
      occurred on. More details, and what to do about it, are in the section
      on Choosing a logfile.
- What does "Logfile with ambiguous
      dates" mean?
      
 See the section on Errors and
      warnings.
- I tried to analyse a logfile, but I just got
      "Large number of corrupt lines."
      
 There are lots of possible reasons for this. You can find them
      described in the section on
      Choosing a logfile.
- Analog won't read logfiles bigger than 2GB.
      
 Analog doesn't have any limitation, but there may be a limitation in
      your OS and/or compiler. Try adding
      CFLAGS=-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 to the Makefile before
      compiling.
- What does this error message mean?
      
 Again, see the section on Errors and
      warnings.
- I tried to run analog from my browser, but it
      didn't work.
  
 Analog should not be run as a CGI program, or even put in the folder
      with your CGI programs, for security reasons. You should use the special
      CGI program instead.
Analog has lots of configuration commands, all of which are in the section on
Customising analog. Here are some of
the most common questions. If your question isn't answered here, you could
also try looking in the index.
  - I want to analyse several logfiles together.
      
 Just use several LOGFILE commands, or wildcards in the
      logfile name.
- I want to make several different statistics
      pages. Do I have to install several copies of analog?
      
 No. Just install it once, and run it with different
      configuration files. (You do have
      to run it once per output page though.)
- My analog.cfg included lots of
      CONFIGFILE commands, but only one output page was
      produced.
      
 Analog can only produce one output page per run. To produce several
      reports, you have to run it several times.
- Why does the Daily Report only show the last
      six weeks?
      
 This is controlled by the
      DAYREPROWS command.
- Why do the time reports all list 0 requests?
      
 or Why are there no bar charts in the time reports?
 They probably only list 0 requests for pages. Maybe you need to use
      PAGEINCLUDE to count
      more files as pages.
- How do I get the Request Report to list files
      with fewer than 20 requests?
      
 Use the REQFLOOR
      command, e.g., REQFLOOR 10r to list down to 10
      requests. Also, if you want to list all the files not just pages, you
      may need to use the command REQINCLUDE *
- How do I ignore accesses from my site?
      
 Use the HOSTEXCLUDE command.
- How do I ignore internal referrers in the
      Referrer Report?
      
 Use the REFREPEXCLUDE command.
- How do I get information on just my pages, not
      everybody's?
      
 Use the FILEINCLUDE command.
- How do I list subdirectories not just top-level
      directories in the Directory Report?
      
 SUBDIR */*
- How do I list minor browser versions in the
      Browser Summary?
      
 Use SUBBROW */*.* (Note that they then appear in the
      Browser Summary, not the Browser Report).
- I want to see the full hostnames in the
      Organisation Report.
      
 The full hostnames are listed in the Host Report.
- I used the command "DIREXCLUDE
      /mydir/", but files in that directory were still listed.
      
 DIREXCLUDE only affects the Directory Report, not the
      other reports. You want "FILEEXCLUDE /mydir/*"
      instead.
- I used the command
      "FILEEXCLUDE /cgi-bin/script.pl", but that
      file was still listed in the Request Report.
      
 If the file has search arguments, you have to be a bit careful with
      FILEEXCLUDE. This is described in the section about
      search arguments.
- I used the command "IMAGEDIR
      C:\analog\images\", but I only got broken images.
      
 The IMAGEDIR command has to be a URL, not a directory on
      your disk. (It's just inserted into the <img> tags in
      the output: have a look at the output and you'll see.) Also this means
      that the images have to be put in the part of your filespace that has
      your web files.
- I want to put several output pages in the same
      directory, but the pie charts overwrite each other.
      
 You have to set the
      CHARTDIR
      and LOCALCHARTDIR to be different for each output. (You
      can still have all the charts in the same directory if the
      CHARTDIR and LOCALCHARTDIR don't end with slashes.)
- I want a configuration file with all of the
      possible configuration commands in it.
      
 One is already distributed with the program, in the
      examples folder.
- I want to see your configuration file.
      
 This is also included in the examples folder in the
      distribution.
- Does the order of the commands matter in the
      configuration file?
      
 Only occasionally. If you have two of one command, the later one will
      generally override the earlier one. Apart from that, commands can come
      in any order, except that LOGFORMAT
      and LOGTIMEOFFSET
      commands must come before the LOGFILE to which they refer.
- Why are my browser and referrer reports
      empty?
      
 Maybe your logfile doesn't contain any browser and referrer
      information?
- Why isn't the Referrer Report sorted
      properly?
      
 It is sorted properly. But search arguments
      are also listed under the file they belong to, and this interrupts the
      ordering. If you set the
      REFARGSFLOOR high
      enough you won't see the search arguments. Or you can include the
      N column to make the
      ordering more obvious.
- I want to list (or not to list) referrers
      with their search arguments in the Referrer Report.
      
 To see the search arguments you may need to set the
      REFARGSFLOOR lower. To
      avoid seeing them, you could set the REFARGSFLOOR higher, or
      alternatively use the
      REFARGSEXCLUDE command
      to ignore them either for all files or just for particular files.
- Why are my click-thru's (or CGI scripts)
      not listed in the Request Report?
      
 If they cause a redirection to another page, they will be listed in
      the Redirection Report, rather than the Request Report.
- I can't find /script.pl?q=1 in the
      Request Report.
      
 If it causes a redirection, it will be in the Redirection Report not
      the Request Report. But also, you may need to set the
      REQARGSFLOOR or
      REDIRARGSFLOOR lower to
      actually see it.
- Why can't I have P in the
      REQCOLS, REQSORTBY or REQFLOOR?
      
 The number of page requests doesn't make sense in the Request Report
      because it's either the same as the number of requests (if the file is a
      page) or zero (if it isn't). If you want to list only pages in this
      report, use REQINCLUDE pages instead.
- Can I find out which files each referrer pointed
      to?
      
 or Can I find out which files each host has read?
 or Can I find out which hosts have read each file?
 or Can I find out the number of hosts visiting on each
      day?
 or lots of similar questions.
 There are lots of questions like this. They all want analog to
      cross-reference two sorts of item (e.g. files and referrers in the first
      example above, or hosts and dates in the last).
 The solution is to use the
      *INCLUDE commands. For example, to
      find out which files a particular referrer pointed to, restrict the
      analysis to just the referrer you're interested in with the 
      REFINCLUDE command. The Request
      Report will then just list the files reached from that referrer.
      Similarly, if you're interested in a particular time period, you can
      focus on just that time by using the
      FROM and TO
      commands.
 You do have to run analog once for each report generated. So for the
      example of referrers, you would have to run it once for each referrer
      you're interested in. Of course, it would be useful to be able to
      cross-refererence all the files and referrers at once.
      But it is fundamental to analog's speed and minimal memory
      requirement that it only records statistics for each type of item
      individually, and doesn't record enough information to cross-reference
      them afterwards.
- Can SETTINGS ON produce a
      configuration file instead of an English list of settings?
      
 No. But it does tell you which configuration files it read, so you
      can just get the commands out of them. Or if you want a list of all
      configuration commands, there is one in the examples
      directory.
- I get the message "logfiles overlap"
      even though the two logfiles contain completely separate requests.
      
 This message is based only on the dates of the files, not the
      contents. If you're sure there is no problem, you can turn it off with
      the command WARNINGS -L.
- Can I count the individual visitors, or
      visits, to my site?
      
 or Can I see how long visitors spend on my site?
 No, it's not technically possible, and don't believe any program
      which tells you it is. See the section on
      How the web works for details.
- Can I change the way dates are formatted in the
      output?
      
 or Can I change some of the phrases in the output?
 Yes, by editing the language
      file.
- How can I change the background colour of my
      output?
      
 or How can I make the output prettier?
 You can change almost any aspect of the design using a
      style sheet.
      There are also some programs on the helper
      applications page to make completely different output from the
      analog data.
Most of the questions in this category are answered in the section on
What the results mean, which I really
recommend you read if you want to understand what analog is telling you.
  - How do I find out the number of hits from your
      data?
      
 I don't use the word hits, because people use it in
      different ways, so it's misleading. I use requests for the
      number of transfers of any type of file (text, graphics, ...), and
      page requests for the number of transfers of HTML pages. See the
      section on Analog's definitions
      for more information.
- Why are there so many referrers from my own
      site?
      
 These come from all the internal links on your site, and all the
      graphics on your pages. See the section on
      How the web works for more
      information. If you don't want to see them, you can use
      REFREPEXCLUDE to
      exclude them.
- The analysis covers exactly a week, but the
      figures for the last seven days don't agree with the totals.
      
 The figures in parentheses are for the seven days before the time
      the program was run, unless there is a TO command. They
      are never for the seven days before the end of the logfile.
      (Although if  you know that the logfile only contains entries up to a
      certain time, you may want to include a TO command for that
      time to get the last seven days' data right.)
- I only have 240 requests in total. Why does
      analog think there are 840 requests per week?
      
 If you have 240 requests in two days, that's a rate of 840 requests
      per week. Just like if you drove 28 miles in 20 minutes, you'd have
      driven at 84 miles per hour.
- The pie charts don't agree with the figures in
	    the tables.
      
 Possibly you are looking at out-of-date images. Make sure to reload
      the images as well as the text. Also, if you are running analog several
      times, make sure to use
      CHARTDIR and
      LOCALCHARTDIR to stop the images for the different
      runs overwriting each other.
- Why doesn't analog agree with the counter on my
      page?
      
 There are lots of possible reasons. Do they both start from
      the same date? Are you just looking at requests for that one page with
      analog, not for all your other pages and graphics? Also, analog will
      record all requests to that page; if it's a graphic, your counter will
      only measure requests from people on graphical browsers that reached
      that place on the page.
- Why doesn't analog agree with grepping the
      logfile?
      
 Have you understood what analog includes in
      its counts? In particular, most reports only list "successful"
      requests (HTTP status codes 200-209 & 304). A naïve grep would
      count failures too.
- Why doesn't analog agree with my other logfile
      analysis program?
      
 Small differences can be put down to different parsing. But if you
      are seeing large differences, you have to understand what analog counts,
      and what the other program counts. For example, some programs count HTTP
      status codes 301 & 302 as successes, whereas I think that to do so
      gives extremely misleading results.
- Why do I only get "unresolved numerical
      addresses" in the Domain Report?
      
 Your server only records the numerical IP address of the hosts that
      contact you, not their names. Read the section about
      DNS lookups, or turn DNS resolution
      on in your server.
- Why are directories listed in the Request
      Report?
      
 They are not directories, they are pages with the same name as
      the directory. For example, I have both a directory called
      /analog/ and a page called /analog/ (which happens
      to be the same as /analog/index.html).
- When someone reads one of my PDF files, it
      scores dozens of hits.
      
 PDF reading software often downloads a file in small parts, and each
      part counts as a separate request. This is unavoidable: analog has no way
      of knowing how many downloads constituted a single document in the
      reader's mind. The parts may be pages, or some larger amount, and
      sometimes the software may download the whole document at once. In
      addition, the user may only want to read part of the document, and so
      never download the whole thing. As usual, we can only reliably report
      how many requests there were at the server, not guess what the user did
      with the file later.
- Kilobytes should be 1000 bytes, not 1024
      bytes.
      
 Personally I think that whatever 1024 bytes should have been called
      originally, it's stupid to try and change half a century of established
      usage now. But we
      don't need to argue about it. Analog's kilobytes are 1024 bytes, but if
      you prefer to call them kibibytes, you can do so by
      editing your language file.
- The Organisation Report doesn't identify
      organisations correctly.
      
 The rules I use are described in the section on
      The domains file.
      I admit they aren't perfect, but this is because in domains in which
      organisations aren't all at the same level in the domain hierarchy,
      there is no way to identify them perfectly without long lists.
- "Organization" isn't spelled
      correctly.
      
 Yes it is. If you want American spellings, you have to specifyLANGUAGE US-ENGLISH in your configuration file.
  - How can I do such-and-such with a command line
      option?
      
 Use the +C option to put
      any configuration command on the command line.
- I want a list of all command line arguments.
      
 There is a list in the index.
- How do I list all numerical subdomains to depth
      2 in the Domain Report?
      
 SUBDOMAIN *.* deliberately only lists the top-level
      numerical subdomains to avoid cluttering the output.
      SUBDOMAIN *.*.* will work but will list everything else
      to depth 3. So the best solution isSUBDOMAIN 1*.*,2*.*,3*.*,... 
- I want to be able to count requests with status
      code 301 and 302 as successes, so that they appear in the Request
      Report.
      
 No, you really don't, because that would lead to double counting
      when a request for /dir (code 301) is redirected to
      /dir/ (code 200). For CGI scripts etc. look in the
      Redirection Report instead of the Request Report.
- I want to report on a field analog doesn't know
      about.
      
 Use the following kludge. Write a
      LOGFORMAT to declare the field to
      be a virtual host or a user (whichever you aren't already using). Then
      edit your language file so that the right text is output.
- Can analog analyse Squid proxy logfiles?
      
 It can analyse Squid's common log format, although Squid uses some
      extra HTTP status codes which will be rejected as corrupt by analog. But
      really you want to know different statistics from a proxy log, such as
      percentage of requests retrieved from cache, and you might be better to
      use Squid's native format and a tool specifically designed to analyse it
      such as Calamaris.
- Can analog analyse FTP logfiles?
      
 or Can analog analyse streaming media logfiles?
 Yes. There are some configuration files in the examples
      directory giving sample LOGFORMAT commands. If you have a
      server which isn't covered there, you will have to write your own
      LOGFORMAT.
- Can analog analyse other logfiles, such as mail
      logs, or the syslog?
      
 Yes and no. Analog is primarily designed as an HTTP logfile
      analyser. For mail logs, there is a program on the
      helper applications page to help you. For
      other logs, you can get some results out by writing your own
      LOGFORMAT. But analog does make
      some assumptions about the sort of information it expects on a logfile
      line, and the further these assumptions are from being met, the harder
      it will be!
- How can I run analog automatically every day?
      
 This depends on your particular machine. On Unix, you need to run
      analog as a cron job (see "man cron"). This is my cron command
      to run it at 1:50am every day:
 50 1 * * * $HOME/bin/analog
 On Windows NT you can do the same with the at command. (It's
      probably easiest to put it in a batch job; also only an
      administrator can run at.) On Windows 98, it should be possible with the
      Task Scheduler, although I haven't tried it. On Windows 95 it's not
      possible as far as I know.
 On Mac, there are programs called
      Cron or
      CronoTask
      to do this.
- How can I automatically email the results to
      myself or someone else?
      
 Again, this depends on your operating system. On Unix, it's easy:analog +a +O- | mailx -s"Subject" someuser@somewhere.com I don't know about other operating systems, but at the worst, you can
      write the output to a temporary file, and then mail that file.
- I'm setting up IIS. Which logfile format should
      I use?
      
 The W3C format is probably best. You can turn fields on and off in
      this format. And it contains all the possible fields which can be
      logged, which the other formats do not. However, it is important to turn
      the date field on (it's off by default), not just to log the date once
      at the top: see the section on problems
      with logfile formats for why.
- I host lots of virtual domains. How should I set
      up analog?
      
 There's a How-To which discusses
      this issue. There's also a file in the examples directory.
- Can I make several output pages with just one
      run of analog?
      
 Not at the moment. I want to do this in a future version, but it will
      require some considerable work. However, depending on your which options
      you want to vary, you may be able to avoid having to read the logfile
      several times by using cache files. (This is
      likely to be faster, but more complicated.)
- I ran out of memory when trying to run
      analog. What can I do?
      
 See the section on Coping with low memory.
- You're processing 20,000,000 requests in under
      10 minutes. Why is mine much slower?
  
 or Analog appears to stall.
 If you have DNS lookups on, they are very
      slow. Otherwise, it probably depends on the speed of your computer and
      disks, and what other programs are running at the same time. You can
      use the PROGRESSFREQ
      command to see 
      if it's really stalled or whether it's just being slow. If you are
      running out of memory, you might find analog's
      LOWMEM commands helpful.
- How do I make a link on my page that runs
      analog?
      
 Link to the anlgform program, with the
      desired options. But be careful about the load on your server.
- Do I have to save all my old logfiles?
      
 or Can analog make statistics from old reports instead
      of reading the whole logfile again?
 These questions are answered in the section about
      Cache files.
- Can analog write to a database or
      spreadsheet?
      
 Use the computer-readable output style,
      which can export to CSV. Or if what you really want to do is to run
      analog again without re-reading the logfiles, read the section about
      Cache files.
There is also a section on troubleshooting in
the documentation about the form interface.
  - I couldn't make the form run.
      
 Have you made analog work without the form? Have you run
      anlgform.pl from the command line as explained in the section
      on troubleshooting?
- How can I specify different logfiles from the
      form interface?
      
 Just add a new field to the form with name=LOGFILE
- My browser showed me anlgform.pl, rather than
      running it.
      
 You have to tell the server to execute the CGI program, not just
      send it out like it would for a normal file. Often this is done by
      putting it in a special /cgi-bin/ directory.
- Why does the form interface give "Document
      Returned no Data"?
      
 If it doesn't happen for a while, then probably the server is giving
      up before the analog process has finished running. Increase the timeout
      interval on the server.
- The images don't appear when running analog from
      the form interface.
      
 For the bar charts, you probably need to set the
      IMAGEDIR, because if the
      images are in your /cgi-bin/ directory, the server will
      normally try to execute them instead of just sending them out. Pie
      charts don't appear unless you configure
      them specially.
- Why do I get some reports that weren't requested
      on the form?
      
 If a report is neither included nor excluded on the form, the
      system default will be used. This will depend on your configuration files
      and on compile-time settings.
- How do I make a link to anlgform.pl
      without using anlgform.html?
      
 anlgform.pl accepts the GET or POST
      methods of form submission. So you can make a link with the arguments
      passed after a question mark in the usual GET way.
- Is there a form interface not using Perl
      (e.g. ASP or .exe)?
      
 There is a Windows executable version of the Perl script on the
      analog helpers page. At the time of writing,
      I don't know of any ASP version of the anlgform program, but if someone
      writes one, I'll put it on the analog helpers
      page too.
      Warning: Potential authors must understand CGI
      security issues in general, and the extra
      issues about what the analog form interface must disallow, or they
      will open security holes on their system.
or "Why didn't you do it this way?"
  - Why doesn't the HEADERFILE replace
      the whole <head> of the output file?
      
 Because you almost never get valid HTML or XHTML that way. Use a
      style sheet instead.
- Why don't you just use one image, and scale it
      with the width and height attributes?
      
 It doesn't work with
      the BARSTYLE command.
- In the XHTML output, why not just put a class= on
  each <COL> instead of on each cell?
  
 Because most properties can't be set on columns. For example, you can't
  set the text colour for a whole column. See
  the CSS spec.
- Why doesn't the OUTFILE command
      automatically create the directory for the output file?
      
 Actually, most programs don't do this. It's too easy to create
      directories in unrelated parts of the filesystem if you make a typo.
- Why not automatically spot robots by whether
      they request /robots.txt?
      
 It's not reliable. Not all robots request /robots.txt,
      and not everything that requests /robots.txt is a robot.
      (Consider a webmaster checking his own /robots.txt, for
      example.)
- Why not just do DNS resolution of the hosts that
      actually make it into the Host Report?
      
 There is one theoretical and one practical problem. Theoretically,
      the problem is that which hosts do make it into the Host Report can
      change when the DNS lookups have been done. And practically, this
      wouldn't help identify the busiest countries or organisations, which is
      usually what you really want to know. However, there is a Perl script on
      the helper applications page to do this.
- Couldn't you do the DNS lookups faster with
      threads?
      
 The problem is, the standard commands for DNS lookups are not
      thread-safe on many platforms, so it would involve a lot of
      platform-specific code. Also it's technically difficult to coordinate
      the lookup threads and the main logfile-reading thread. Again, there are
      programs for specific platforms
      on the helper applications page.
- Why doesn't analog analyse the error_log?
      
 The error log is intended for humans rather than computers to read.
      So there is no consistent format: even different versions of the same
      server have different formats. And there is not much need to analyse it
      because analog's various failure reports are good enough for almost all
      purposes.
- My server lists local names in the logfile. Can
      you put a common suffix on them automatically?
      
 This wouldn't be a good idea by default, because things like
      "unknown" would get the suffix. You can always add them using
      HOSTALIAS. (There is
      an example to accomplish this using regular expressions in the
      section about aliases.)
- Can you extrapolate from the current month's
      partial data to produce a prediction for the whole month, based on the
      rate so far?
      
 No. There are too many problems in trying to produce anything
      sensible, especially near the beginning of the month. Different days of
      the week and different times of day cause lots of problems. I would
      prefer to produce accurate raw data than suspect derived data.
- Can you extend the Domain Report to say which US
      states people visited from?
      
 No. Some programs pretend to do this, but you can actually only tell
      which state the computer the person was using is in, which may be quite
      different from where the user was for ISP's or other large organisations.
- Please distinguish between the different BSDs
      in the Operating System Report.
      
 Sorry, I know they're different operating systems, but I don't want
      to introduce any finer granularity. At least, not in the main
      distribution -- the prepackaged versions for BSD do add this
      granularity, and this is good.
- Why not use language codes instead of country
      codes for the names of the language files?
      
 People are more familiar with the country codes, and not all of my
      languages have language codes anyway. Anyway, the filenames are normally
      invisible to the user.
- Why doesn't analog produce statistics on
      "visits"?
      
 See How the Web Works.
- Why don't you sell analog?
      
 I didn't write analog for the money, and I'm happy just to see
      people use it. Also, by making it open source, lots of people send me
      ideas and code to include in future versions. How do you think I got all
      those languages? (Of course, if you want to send me money, or gifts in
      kind, or even just postcards...).
Go to the analog home page.
Stephen Turner
19 December 2004
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