logcli --quiet flag misleading

[Dieterbe]

latest logcli.
--quiet flag promises to "only show log lines".
but this is not true. it still shows all kinds of extra json data I don't want.
the only way i can get "just the log lines" is by adding -o raw
cc @owen-d

[adityacs]

@Dieterbe You see this behaviour just when tailing logs or both in tail and query?

[Dieterbe]

i used logcli query. did not try tail.

[adityacs]

Yeah, something wrong. Was trying some debugging. Somehow, --quiet is not getting parsed correctly

$./logcli query --quiet --since=1h '{filename="/var/log/system.log"}'
Quiet is false
http://localhost:3100/loki/api/v1/query_range?direction=BACKWARD&end=1581505857881302000&limit=30&query=%7Bfilename%3D%22%2Fvar%2Flog%2Fsystem.log%22%7D&start=1581502257881302000
Common labels: {filename="/var/log/system.log", job="varlogs"}
2020-02-12T16:40:29+05:30 {} Feb 12 16:40:29 syslogd[38]:  Sender Statistics

[adityacs]

Bug is likely in this line https://github.com/grafana/loki/blob/master/cmd/logcli/main.go#L66
rangeQuery doesn't parse quiet value as rangeQuery is only defined with newQuery() https://github.com/grafana/loki/blob/master/cmd/logcli/main.go#L30

If we print the value of *quiet, it's returning correct value
Will create a PR to fix this.

[owen-d]

Great @adityacs , thanks!

[Dieterbe]

this is still not fixed.

~ ❯❯❯ go get -u github.com/grafana/loki/cmd/logcli
~ ❯❯❯ logcli query --since=1h --limit=2 --quiet '{app="metrictank",role="query",instance=~".*ops.*"} |="render"'
2020-02-13T19:35:46+02:00 {} 2020-02-13 17:35:46.304 [INFO] ts=2020-02-13T17:35:46.304724519Z traceID=502666e157091f53 msg="POST /render/?format=msgpack&from=1581527145&now=1581615345&targblah2&until=1581615345 (200) 70.783712ms" orgID=12574 sourceIP="10.56.34.31"
2020-02-13T19:35:45+02:00 {} 2020-02-13 17:35:45.738 [INFO] ts=2020-02-13T17:35:45.73855417Z traceID=502666e157091f53 msg="POST /render/?format=msgpack&from=blah&until=1581615345 (200) 7.710247ms" orgID=12574 sourceIP="10.56.34.31"

for both these lines, the first two columns (i.e. up until {}) is not part of the loglines that my app emits.

Am I misinterpreting what "Log line" means? does it not mean the lines emitted by my app?

[rfratto]

@Dieterbe I think in this case, when the help says log line, it's instead referring to the log entry from Loki's perspective (i.e., the combination of the timestamp, the label set, and the raw log line). Given that, --quiet seems to be doing the right thing now: it's only showing log entries and not printing the URL used to query Loki and any common labels.

A combination of --quiet and -oraw might be what you're looking for here: is there anything we can do to help make that experience smoother for you?

[Dieterbe]

yes --quiet and -o raw combined works well.

is there anything we can do to help make that experience smoother for you?

i guess throughout the docs and help menus it should be clearer what the different kinds of "log lines" are.

[stale]

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