Re: Using XML for audit trail

Perhaps I should explain. The server received fragments of text which  
is appended to and XML file. Sometimes the server hung and the log  
file was there for diagnosis but because and incomplete fragment had  
been written out the file wasn't valid XML.

I wish I'd known about XML fragment documents at the time.

Sent from my iPhone

On 27 Feb 2009, at 18:19, Mont Rothstein <[email protected]>  
wrote:

> John,
>
> Thanks for the feedback and info.
>
> Do you have any insight into what was causing the failures?  Our  
> logs are
> unlikely to be anything close to 10 MB in size.
>
> Thanks,
> -Mont
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 11:41 PM, John Brett  
> <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> Hi Mont,
>>
>> I've just been through the same thought exercise.
>>
>> I concluded that xml simply isn't a good format to use for a  
>> continual
>> logging system.
>> My conclusions were, in part, based upon seeing an internal system
>> that did pretty much what you're describing fail periodically,  
>> leaving
>> behind a log file that was no longer valid xml (and therefore  
>> couldn't
>> be parsed by all the standard tools we had in place). Trying to  
>> read a
>> 10Mb sort-of xml document in a text editor to diagnose faults is
>> pretty tedious.
>>
>> My solution was to use a different serialisation format (structured
>> text) that was record-oriented, and then to have a separate phase
>> which could convert a given snapshot of the log into xml.
>>
>> HTH,
>> John
>>
>> 2009/2/27 Mont Rothstein <[email protected]>:
>>> I want to use XML for an audit trail.  The problem I am having is  
>>> that I
>>> would like to only use append operations to write to the file.
>>>
>>> My thought had been to write an element to each line, with sub- 
>>> elements
>> and
>>> the end on the same line.  I could then parse each line when  
>>> reading the
>>> file.  The problem is I can't figure out how to get the XML for a
>>> node/element/document, and all of the sub-elements, to write out  
>>> as a
>> single
>>> line.
>>>
>>> Alternatively  I could use some other mechanism to parse the file  
>>> and
>> read
>>> each audit entry (xml element with sub-elements) in sequence.
>>>
>>> Any suggestions on how to either write the XML as a single line or a
>>> preferred method for parsing elements in a file one at a time?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> -Mont
>>>
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