Question

I am using this function in my code to return the strings i want from reading the log file, I want to grep the “exim” process and return the results, but running the code gives no error, but the output is limited to three lines, how can i just get the output only related to exim process..

#output:
    {'date': '13', 'process': 'syslogd', 'time': '06:27:33', 'month': 'May'}
    {'date': '13', 'process': 'exim[23168]:', 'time': '06:27:33', 'month': 'May'}
    {'May': ['syslogd']}


#function:    
def generate_log_report(logfile):
    report_dict = {}
    for line in logfile:
        line_dict = dictify_logline(line)
        print line_dict
        try:
            month = line_dict['month']
            date = line_dict['date']
            time = line_dict['time']
            #process = line_dict['process']
            if "exim" in line_dict['process']:
                process = line_dict['process']  
                break
            else:
                process = line_dict['process']      
        except ValueError:
            continue
        report_dict.setdefault(month, []).append(process)
    return report_dict

Answer 1

i changed the code to this, but it gives me just one line as output??? anything missing…

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys

def generate_log_report(logfile):
        for line in logfile:
                line_split = line.split()
                list = [line_split[0], line_split[1], line_split[2], line_split[4]]
                if "exim" in list[3]:
                        l = [line_split[0], line_split[1], line_split[2], line_split[4]]
                else:
                        li = [line_split[0], line_split[1], line_split[2], line_split[4]]
        return l


if __name__ == "__main__":
        if not len(sys.argv) > 1:
                print __doc__
                sys.exit(1)
        infile_name = sys.argv[1]
        try:
                infile = open(infile_name, "r")
        except IOError:
                print "you must specify a valid file"
                print __doc__
                sys.exit(1)
        log_report = generate_log_report(infile)
        print log_report
        infile.close()