mcatalog

The mcatalog command is an internal, unsupported, experimental command. See About internal commands.

Description

The mcatalog command performs aggregations on the values in the metric_name and dimension fields in the metric indexes.

Syntax

| mcatalog [prestats=<bool>] [append=<bool>] ( <values"("<field> ")"> [AS <field>] )
[WHERE <logical-expression>] [ (BY|GROUPBY) <field-list> ]

Required arguments

values (<field>)

Syntax: values(<field>) [AS <field>]

Description: Returns the list of all distinct values of the specified field as a multivalue entry. The order of the values is lexicographical. See Usage.

Optional arguments

append

Syntax: append=<bool>

Description: Valid only when prestats=true. This argument runs the mcatalog command and adds the results to an existing set of results instead of generating new results.

Default: false

<field-list>

Syntax: <field>, ...

Description: Specify one or more fields to group results.

<logical-expression>

Syntax: <time-opts>|<search-modifier>|((NOT)? <logical-expression>)|<index-expression>|<comparison-expression>|(<logical-expression> (OR)? <logical-expression>)

Description: Includes time and search modifiers, comparison, and index expressions. Does not support CASE or TERM directives. You also cannot use the WHERE clause to search for terms or phrases.

prestats

Syntax: prestats=true | false

Description: Specifies whether to use the prestats format. The prestats format is a Splunk internal format that is designed to be consumed by commands that generate aggregate calculations. When using the prestats format you can pipe the data into the chart, stats, or timechart commands, which are designed to accept the prestats format. When prestats=true, AS instructions are not relevant. The field names for the aggregates are determined by the command that consumes the prestats format and produces the aggregate output.

Default: false

Logical expression options

<comparison-expression>

Syntax: <field><comparison-operator><value> | <field> IN (<value-list>)

Description: Compare a field to a literal value or provide a list of values that can appear in the field.

<index-expression>

Syntax: "<string>" | <term> | <search-modifier>

Description: Describe the events you want to retrieve from the index using literal strings and search modifiers.

<time-opts>

Syntax: [<timeformat>] (<time-modifier>)*

Description: Describe the format of the starttime and endtime terms of the search

Comparison expression options

<comparison-operator>

Syntax: = |  != | < | <= | > | >=

Description: You can use comparison operators when searching field/value pairs. Comparison expressions with the equal ( = ) or not equal ( != ) operator compare string values. For example, "1" does not match "1.0". Comparison expressions with greater than or less than operators < > <= >= numerically compare two numbers and lexicographically compare other values. See Usage.

<field>

Syntax: <string>

Description: The name of a field.

<value>

Syntax: <literal-value>

Description: In comparison-expressions, the literal number or string value of a field.

<value-list>

Syntax: (<literal-value>, <literal-value>, ...)

Description: Used with the IN operator to specify two or more values. For example use error IN (400, 402, 404, 406) instead of error=400 OR error=402 OR error=404 OR error=406

Index expression options

<string>

Syntax: "<string>"

Description: Specify keywords or quoted phrases to match. When searching for strings and quoted strings (anything that's not a search modifier), Splunk software searches the _raw field for the matching events or results.

<search-modifier>

Syntax: <sourcetype-specifier> | <host-specifier> | <source-specifier> | <splunk_server-specifier>

Description: Search for events from specified fields. For example, search for one or a combination of hosts, sources, and source types. See searching with default fields in the Knowledge Manager manual.

<sourcetype-specifier>

Syntax: sourcetype=<string>

Description: Search for events from the specified sourcetype field.

<host-specifier>

Syntax: host=<string>

Description: Search for events from the specified host field.

<source-specifier>

Syntax: source=<string>

Description: Search for events from the specified source field.

<splunk_server-specifier>

Syntax: splunk_server=<string>

Description: Search for events from a specific server. Use "local" to refer to the search head.

Time options

For a list of time modifiers, see Time modifiers for search.

<timeformat>

Syntax: timeformat=<string>

Description: Set the time format for starttime and endtime terms.

Default: timeformat=%m/%d/%Y:%H:%M:%S.

<time-modifier>

Syntax: starttime=<string> | endtime=<string> | earliest=<time_modifier> | latest=<time_modifier>

Description: Specify start and end times using relative or absolute time.

You can also use the earliest and latest attributes to specify absolute and relative time ranges for your search.

For more about this time modifier syntax, see About search time ranges in the Search Manual.

starttime

Syntax: starttime=<string>

Description: Events must be later or equal to this time. Must match timeformat.

endtime

Syntax: endtime=<string>

Description: All events must be earlier or equal to this time.

Usage

You use the mcatalog command to search metrics data. The metrics data uses a specific format for the metrics fields. See Metrics data format in Metrics. The _values field is not allowed with this command.

The mcatalog command is a generating command for reports. Generating commands use a leading pipe character. The mcatalog command must be the first command in a search pipeline, except when append=true.

If your role does not have the list_metrics_catalog capability, you cannot use mcatalog.

See About defining roles with capabilities in the Securing Splunk Enterprise manual.

WHERE

Use the WHERE clause to filter by supported dimensions.

If you do not specify an index name in the WHERE clause, the mcatalog command returns results from the default metrics indexes associated with your role. If you do not specify an index name and you have no default metrics indexes associated with your role, mcatalog returns no results. To search against all metrics indexes use WHERE index=*.

For more information about defining default metrics indexes for a role in Splunk Enterprise, see Create and manage roles with Splunk Web in Securing Splunk Enterprise.

For more information about defining default metrics indexes for a role in Splunk Cloud Platform, see Create and manage roles with Splunk Web in Securing Splunk Cloud Platform.

Group by

You can group by dimension and metric_name fields.

The mcatalog command does not allow grouping by time ranges. The argument is not included in its syntax.

Time dimensions

The mcatalog command does not recognize the following time-related dimensions.

Unsupported dimensions
date_hour date_mday date_minute date_month date_second	date_wday date_year date_zone metric_timestamp time	timeendpos timestamp timestartpos

Lexicographical order

Lexicographical order sorts items based on the values used to encode the items in computer memory. In Splunk software, this is almost always UTF-8 encoding, which is a superset of ASCII.

• Numbers are sorted before letters. Numbers are sorted based on the first digit. For example, the numbers 10, 9, 70, 100 are sorted lexicographically as 10, 100, 70, 9.
• Uppercase letters are sorted before lowercase letters.
• Symbols are not standard. Some symbols are sorted before numeric values. Other symbols are sorted before or after letters.

You can specify a custom sort order that overrides the lexicographical order. See the blog Order Up! Custom Sort Orders.

Examples

1. Return all of the metric names in a specific metric index

Return all of the metric names in the new-metric-idx.

| mcatalog values(metric_name) WHERE index=new-metric-idx

2. Return all metric names in the default metric indexes associated with the role of the user

If the user role has no default metric indexes assigned to it, the search returns no events.

| mcatalog values(metric_name)

3. Return all IP addresses for a specific metric_name among all metric indexes

Return of the IP addresses for the login.failure metric name.

| mcatalog values(ip) WHERE index=* AND metric_name=login.failure

4. Return a list of all available dimensions in the default metric indexes associated with the role of the user

| mcatalog values(_dims)

In a distributed search environment, this search is equivalent to | mcatalog values(_dims) WHERE index=default_metric_index.

Federated Search for Splunk does not support the manner in which | mcatalog values(_dims) finds dimensions specifically from default metric indexes. When you use this search string in a standard mode federated search, you must explicitly define the federated index for which you want to see dimensions. In addition, that federated index must be mapped to a metrics index dataset type.

For example, this is how you would run | mcatalog values(_dims) as a federated search.

| mcatalog values(_dims) WHERE index=federated:remote1_metrics metric_name=*

See Run federated searches over remote Splunk platform deployments in Federated Search.