grep

The filter_grep filter plugin "greps" events by the values of specified fields.

Example Configurations

filter_grep is included in Fluentd's core. No installation required.

<filter foo.bar>
  @type grep
  <regexp>
    key message
    pattern cool
  </regexp>
  <regexp>
    key hostname
    pattern ^web\d+\.example\.com$
  </regexp>
  <exclude>
    key message
    pattern uncool
  </exclude>
</filter>

The above example matches any event that satisfies the following conditions:

1. The value of the "message" field contains "cool"

2. The value of the "hostname" field matches

   web<INTEGER>.example.com.

3. The value of the "message" field does NOT contain "uncool".

Hence, the following events are kept:

{"message":"It's cool outside today", "hostname":"web001.example.com"}
{"message":"That's not cool", "hostname":"web1337.example.com"}

whereas the following examples are filtered out:

{"message":"I am cool but you are uncool", "hostname":"db001.example.com"}
{"hostname":"web001.example.com"}
{"message":"It's cool outside today"}

Parameters

<regexp> directive (optional)

Specify filtering rule. This directive contains two parameters. This parameter is available since v0.12.38.

• key

The field name to which the regular expression is applied.

• pattern

The regular expression.

For example, the following filters out events unless the field "price" is a positive integer.

<regexp>
  key price
  pattern [1-9]\d*
</regexp>

The grep filter filters out UNLESS all <regexp>s are matched. Hence, if you have

<regexp>
  key price
  pattern [1-9]\d*
</regexp>
<regexp>
  key item_name
  pattern ^book_
</regexp>

unless the event's "item_name" field starts with "book_" and the "price" field is an integer, it is filtered out.

For OR condition, you can use | operator of regular expressions. For example, if you have

<regexp>
  key item_name
  pattern (^book_|^article)
</regexp>

unless the event's "item_name" field starts with "book" or "article", it is filtered out.

Learn regular expressions for more patterns.

regexpN (optional)

This is deprecated parameter. Use <regexp> instead if you use v0.12.38 or later.

The "N" at the end should be replaced with an integer between 1 and 20 (ex: "regexp1"). regexpN takes two whitespace-delimited arguments.

Here is regexpN version of <regexp> example:

regexp1 price [1-9]\d*
regexp2 item_name ^book_

<exclude> directive (optional)

Specify filtering rule to reject events. This directive contains two parameters. This parameter is available since v0.12.38.

• key

The field name to which the regular expression is applied.

• pattern

The regular expression.

For example, the following filters out events whose "status_code" field is 5xx.

<exclude>
  key status_code
  pattern ^5\d\d$
</exclude>

The grep filter filters out if any <exclude> is matched. Hence, if you have

<exclude>
  key status_code
  pattern ^5\d\d$
</exclude>
<exclude>
  key url
  pattern \.css$
</exclude>

Then, any event whose "status_code" is 5xx OR "url" ends with ".css" is filtered out.

excludeN (optional)

This is deprecated parameter. Use <exclude> instead if you use v0.12.38 or later.

The "N" at the end should be replaced with an integer between 1 and 20 (ex: "exclude1"). excludeN takes two whitespace-delimited arguments.

Here is excludeN version of <exclude> example:

exclude1 status_code ^5\d\d$
exclude2 url \.css$

If <regexp> and <exclude> are used together, both are applied.

Learn More

• Filter Plugin Overview
• record_transformer Filter Plugin

If this article is incorrect or outdated, or omits critical information, please let us know. Fluentd is a open source project under Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). All components are available under the Apache 2 License.