Overview of skip and limit tests

Skip and limit tests are based on this total number of records. You can use keywords to specify a number of records to be skipped before starting to consider records as candidates and to prevent more than a specified number of records from being considered.

You might want to use the SKIP keyword or the LIMIT keyword under the following conditions:

• You know that the beginning of a log data set contains records that are not needed in the analysis.
• You want to limit the number of log records that Log Analyzer tries to process so that fewer computing resources are consumed.

If you specify these keywords, you should be careful because they can cause log records that could be vital to the your analysis to be omitted from the process.

If you specified the SKIP keyword on the ANALYZE control statement, Log Analyzer compares the SKIP value to the total. If the SKIP value is greater than or equal to the total, Log Analyzer discards the record. If the SKIP value is less than the total, Log Analyzer keeps the record and applies the next applicable test to that record. Log Analyzer stops applying the skip test to the next and subsequent records that are read.

If you specified the LIMIT keyword on the ANALYZE control statement, Log Analyzer compares the LIMIT value to the total. If the LIMIT value is less than or equal to the total, Log Analyzer keeps the record and applies the next applicable test to that record. If the LIMIT value is greater than the total, Log Analyzer stops reading records from the log record source as though end of file has been reached.

If you specified the SKIP keyword and the LIMIT keyword on the ANALYZE control statement, Log Analyzer waits to apply the limit test until the skip test no longer applies.

If you omit the SKIP keyword and the LIMIT keyword, Log Analyzer does not apply skip and limit tests.

If you specify the SKIP keyword or the LIMIT keyword, you must also specify the SLDS keyword.