A very good description of the challenges of parsing log files begins this paper. The authors explain that ad-hoc logging statements are insufficient for fully understanding and tracking errors in software systems. They propose an abstraction of rule-based logging that leverages artifacts from the design process (unified modeling language (UML)). I really enjoyed this part of the paper and was prepared for a very good finish.

Section 4 describes the details of the authors’ implementation of rule-based logging. Unfortunately, they are hard for humans to read and require a separate parser to understand.

The remainder of the paper describes the experimental setup and results. This section is interesting in that it shows the superiority of the rule-based approach.

I would highly recommend the first part of this paper to anyone working on logging systems. The structure and focus are very clear. The rest of the paper is not as helpful, but might provide some tips or suggestions for new implementations.