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Analog 5.22: Analog's definitions

This section describes how analog defines its terms, and exactly what is counted in each category. It gets a bit technical at times -- if you're just trying to understand the output, I recommend you read the section on Analog's reports first.

We start with some basic definitions. The host is the computer which has asked you for a file (often called the "client"). The file might be a page (i.e., an HTML document) or it might be something else, such as an image. By default filenames ending in (case insensitive) .html, .htm, or / count as pages, but you can tell analog to count any file as a page with the PAGEINCLUDE command.

The total requests counts all the files which have been requested, including pages, graphics, etc. (Some people call this the number of hits, but that word is also used in other ways by other people, so I avoid it). The requests for pages obviously only counts pages. One user can generate many requests by requesting lots of different files, or the same file many times.

The referrer for a request is the place that the user (or his computer) heard about your file from. If he followed a link to reach a page, it will be the previous page. In the case of a graphic on a page, the referrer will be the page containing the graphic.

Analog's kilobytes are 1024 bytes. (If you prefer to call these kibibytes, you can do so by editing your language file.)

Analog recognises four categories of request, based on the HTTP status code of the request. You can see the total number of requests for each status code, and what the codes mean, in the Status Code Report. (Or see the HTTP spec for a detailed description.)

First, successful requests are those with HTTP status codes in the 200's (where the document was returned) or with code 304 (where the document was requested but was not needed because it had not been recently modified and the user could use a cached copy). (Actually, you can configure code 304 to be a redirected request instead of a successful request with the 304ISSUCCESS command.) Successful requests for pages refers to those lines on which the file requested was named and was a page.

Redirected requests are those with other codes in the 300's, indicating that the user was directed to a different file instead. The most common cause of these requests is that the user has incorrectly requested a directory name without the trailing slash. The server replies with a redirection ("you probably mean the following") and the user then makes a second connection to get the correct document (although usually the browser does it automatically without the user's intervention or knowledge). The other common cause of redirected requests is their use as "click-thru" advertising banners.

Failed requests are those with codes in the 400's (error in request) or 500's (server error). They come about for a variety of reasons, but the most common are when the requested file is not found or is read-protected.

Finally, requests returning informational status code are those with status codes in the 100's. These are very rare at the moment.

There are a few other types of logfile lines listed in the General Summary. Lines without status code refers to those logfile lines without a status code, and the successful requests in the General Summary only counts the ones with a status code: except if the line contains the name of the file requested, and the filename is being counted (not starred in the LOGFORMAT), then it's counted as a success. Unwanted logfile entries are ones which you have explicitly excluded. Finally, corrupt logfile lines are those which analog didn't manage to parse. (The number given is the number of unparseable lines in the whole logfile, even if the rest of the analysis is restricted to a small part of the logfile, because analog doesn't know whether a line would have been wanted if it couldn't parse it! You can list all the corrupt lines by turning debugging on.)

Most reports only include successful requests in calculating the number of requests, requests for pages, bytes, and last date: unless, of course, the report is a redirection or failure report. There is a further restriction on the time reports, the Status Code Report, the Processing Time Report, the File Size Report, and the bytes lines in the General Summary: the logfile line must also contain the name of the file requested, and the filename must be being counted. This is necessary to stop double counting if the server uses separate logs.

The "not listed" line at the bottom of each of the non-time reports represents those items which were not listed because they were below the floor for the report. (It doesn't include items which you've explicitly excluded.)

The figures in parentheses in the General Summary are for the last seven days: either the seven days before the TO time, or if no TO time is given, the seven days before the time of the program start. (It would be nicer to use the seven days before the last time in the logfile, but we don't know when this is until we've read the whole logfile, and by then it's too late.) The figures for the last seven days are not included if all, or none, of the requests fall in the last seven days.

In the Domain Report, "domain not given" means that the hostname did not contain a dot. "Unknown domain" means that it did contain a dot, but that the domain name was not in the domains file (or that the domains file could not be read). The hosts and domains concerned can be listed by turning debugging on.

In the Operating System Report, which browsers count as robots is controlled by the ROBOTINCLUDE and ROBOTEXCLUDE commands.

Go to the analog home page.

Stephen Turner
20 March 2002

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