Search command primer

At the beginning of a search pipeline, the search command is implied, even though you do not explicitly specify it. If you type in

host=webserver*

It is as if you typed in

search host=webserver*

Use keywords, phrases, fields, boolean expressions, and comparison expressions to specify exactly which events you want to retrieve from Splunk indexes.

For specific information see:

• Wildcards
• Backslashes
• Boolean expressions
• Field expressions
• Difference between NOT and !=
• Use CASE and TERM to match phrases
• SPL and regular expressions

Keywords and phrases

By default, when you search with keywords and phrases, Splunk software retrieves events by matching against the raw event field, _raw, in your data. When you start adding search modifiers, such as fields like _time and tag, you are also matching against pieces of information that have been extracted from the _raw field.

When searching for strings, which includes keywords and quoted phrases (or anything that's not a search modifier), Splunk software searches the _raw field for the matching events or results. Some examples of keywords and phrases are:

web

error

web error

"web error"

Note that the search for the quoted phrase "web error" is not the same as the search before it. When you search for web error, Splunk software returns events that contain both "web" and "error". When you search for "web error", Splunk software only returns events that contain the phrase "web error".

File paths

To search for a file path, such as D:\Digital\RTFM, you must escape the backslash characters in the path, for example D:\\Digital\\RTFM.

If the file path contains spaces you must enclose the path in quotation marks. For example:

"D:\\Digital\\RTFM Backup Folder"

A space is considered a major breaker in data. To learn more about major and minor breakers, see Event segmentation and searching.

See Also

• Understanding SPL syntax
• About retrieving events
• About search time ranges
• Quick tips for optimization