inputcsv
Description
For Splunk Enterprise deployments, loads search results from the specified .csv file, which is not modified. The filename must refer to a relative path in $SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/csv
. If dispatch=true
, the path must be in $SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/dispatch/<job id>
.
If the specified file does not exist and the filename does not have an extension, then the Splunk software assumes it has a filename with a .csv
extension.
If you run into an issue with the inputcsv
command resulting in an error, ensure that your CSV file ends with a BLANK LINE.
Syntax
The required syntax is in bold.
- | inputcsv
- [dispatch=<bool>]
- [append=<bool>]
- [strict=<bool>]
- [start=<int>]
- [max=<int>]
- [events=<bool>]
- <filename>
- [WHERE <search-query>]
Required arguments
- filename
- Syntax: <filename>
- Description: Specify the name of the .csv file, located in
$SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/csv
.
Optional arguments
- dispatch
- Syntax: dispatch=<bool>
- Description: When set to true, this argument indicates that the filename is a .csv file in the dispatch directory. The relative path is
$SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/dispatch/<job id>/
. - Default: false
- append
- Syntax: append=<bool>
- Description: Specifies whether the data from the .csv file is appended to the current set of results (true) or replaces the current set of results (false).
- Default: false
- strict
- Syntax: strict=<bool>
- Description: When set to
true
this argument forces the search to fail completely ifinputcsv
raises an error. This happens even when the errors apply to a subsearch. When set tofalse
, manyinputcsv
error conditions return warning messages but do not otherwise cause the search to fail. Certain error conditions cause the search to fail even whenstrict=false
. - Default: false
- events
- Syntax: events=<bool>
- Description: Specifies whether the data in the CSV file are treated as events or as a table of search results. By default
events=false
returns the data in a table with field names as column headings. The table appears on the Statistics tab. If you setevents=true
, the imported CSV data must have the_time
and_raw
fields. The data is treated as events, which appear on the Events tab. - Default: false
- max
- Syntax: max=<int>
- Description: Controls the maximum number of events to be read from the file. If
max
is not specified, there is no limit to the number of events that can be read. - Default: 1000000000 (1 billion)
- start
- Syntax: start=<int>
- Description: Controls the 0-based offset of the first event to be read.
- Default: 0
- WHERE
- Syntax: WHERE <search-criteria>
- Description: Use this clause to improve search performance by prefiltering data returned from the CSV file. Supports a limited set of search query operators: =, !=, <, >, <=, >=, AND, OR, NOT. Any combination of these operators is permitted. Also supports wildcard string searches.
Usage
The inputcsv
command is an event-generating command. See Command types.
Generating commands use a leading pipe character and should be the first command in a search.
Appending or replacing results
If the append
argument is set to true
, you can use the inputcsv
command to append the data from the CSV file to the current set of search results. With append=true
, you use the inputcsv
command later in your search, after the search has returned a set of results. See Examples.
The append
argument is set to false
by default. If the append
argument is not specified or is set to false
, the inputcsv
command must be the first command in the search. Data is loaded from the specified CSV file into the search.
Working with large CSV files
The WHERE
clause allows you to narrow the scope of the search of the inputcsv
file. It restricts the inputcsv
to a smaller number of rows, which can improve search efficiency when you are working with significantly large CSV files.
Distributed deployments
The inputcsv
command is not compatible with search head pooling and search head clustering.
The command saves the *.csv
file on the local search head in the $SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/
directory. The *.csv
files are not replicated on the other search heads.
Strict error handling
Use the strict
argument to make inputcsv
searches fail whenever they encounter an error condition. You can set this at the system level for all inputcsv
and inputlookup
searches by changing input_errors_fatal
in limits.conf
If you use Splunk Cloud Platform, file a Support ticket to change the input_errors_fatal
setting.
Use the strict
argument to override the input_errors_fatal
setting for an inputcsv
search.
Examples
1. Load results that contain a specific string
This example loads search results from the $SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/csv/all.csv
file. Those that contain the string error
are saved to the $SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/csv/error.csv
file.
| inputcsv all.csv | search error | outputcsv errors.csv
2. Load a specific range of results
This example loads results 101 to 600 from either the bar
file, if exists, or from the bar.csv
file.
| inputcsv start=100 max=500 bar
3. Specifying which results to load with operators and expressions
You can use comparison operators and Boolean expression to specify which results to load.
This example loads all of the events from the CSV file $SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/csv/students.csv
and then filters out the events that do not match the WHERE clause, where the values in the age
field are greater than 13, less than 19, but not 16. The search returns a count of the remaining search results.
| inputcsv students.csv WHERE (age>=13 age<=19) AND NOT age=16 | stats count
4. Append data from a CSV file to search results
You can use the append
argument to append data from a CSV file to a set of search results. In this example the combined data is then output back to the same CSV file.
error earliest=-d@d | inputcsv append=true all_errors.csv | outputcsv all_errors.csv
5. Appending multiple CSV files
You can also append the search results of one CSV file to another CSV file by using the append
command and a subsearch. This example uses the eval
command to add a field to each set of data to denote which CSV file the data originated from.
| inputcsv file1.csv | eval source="file1" | append [inputcsv file2.csv | eval source="file2"]
See also
iconify | inputintelligence |
This documentation applies to the following versions of Splunk Cloud Platform™: 9.2.2406, 8.2.2112, 8.2.2202, 9.0.2205, 8.2.2201, 8.2.2203, 9.0.2208, 9.0.2209, 9.0.2303, 9.0.2305, 9.1.2308, 9.1.2312, 9.2.2403 (latest FedRAMP release)
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