Grep has a heuristic to detect text vs. binary by examining the first part of the file. I'm curious to know what you have in, say, the first 100 bytes.
couch.log is a text file, my guess is you have some strange characters in your log that is fooling grep. B. On 27 October 2011 16:59, Travis Paul <[email protected]> wrote: > If I try grep without the -a flag such as: *grep "Thu, 27 Oct 2011" > couch.log* > I get: *Binary file couch.log matches* > > tail, and head commands work as usual, but if I want to open the file in > gedit I have to do something like: *strings couch.log > couch.log.text* > > less command complains as well: *"couch.log" may be a binary file. See it > anyway?* > > On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Robert Newson <[email protected]> wrote: > >> couch.log is a text file with lines like; >> >> [Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:30:57 GMT] [info] [<0.15397.1>] 127.0.0.1 - - GET >> /db1/doc1 200 >> >> What are you seeing in there? >> >> B. >> >> On 27 October 2011 16:36, Travis Paul <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Any idea why the couchdb logs in /var/log/couchdb are binary files? I >> have >> > to use *strings* or *grep -a* to do anything with them... just seemed >> > unusual. >> > >> > Also, does anyone have a custom logwatch service for couchdb they would >> like >> > to share? I'm going to be making one tomorrow if I can't find an existing >> > service. >> > >> > Thanks! >> > >> >
