On Thu, 9 Mar 2006 23:42:50 +0000, Aaron Crane wrote:
> One other note: you can't really guarantee that a single Apache log
> file contains no out-of-order lines. Even though Apache opens log
> files with O_APPEND, you're at the mercy of scheduling vagaries.

Not to mention the time it takes to serve the requests. The time
logged in the file is the time the request was received, not the time
it finished processing.

> So if Awstats really requires logs to be in timestamp order, that's
> potentially awkward.

Especially since most log files are pretty much guaranteed to have out
of sequence timestamps, due to the issue above. So this would be an
unreasonable requirement. Fortunately the docs say 'AWStats has an
advanced parsing algorithm that is able to count correctly visits,
entry and exit pages even if log file is only "nearly" sorted.'

While attempting to figure out how this works (and failing), I found
this fabulous Y2K bug:

  if ($year < 100) { $year+=2000; } else { $year+=1900; }

-- 
	Peter Haworth	pmh@edison.ioppublishing.com
"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits
 is, of course, in a state of sin."
		-- John von Neumann