An easy way to find error messages in Syracuse log files

2 minute read time.

If you have wanted to learn an easy way to search for error messages inside a group of Syracuse log files, this blog will show you how. In this blog I will show you about a feature in Notepad++ where you can search for occurrences of an error message across all of the Syracuse log files. Let's take a look at how to do this.

You will need to download a copy of Notepad++ from the internet if you don't have it installed. (Just search for download Notepad++).

Overview of steps


1 - Open Notepad++
2 - Press Ctrl+Shift+F to invoke the Find screen / Find in Files tab
3 - In the 'Find what' box enter the search value
4 - In the Directory box enter the directory location containing the files in which you will be searching
5 - Click Find all
6 - Search results panel shows location and occurrences of all the matches found

Breakdown of steps


Let's take a look at an example using sample Syracuse log files. I have a few in a folder named c:\syracuse.

The goal in our example, is to find all the occurrences of the word 'error'.  We will search in all the log files in our sample Syracuse folder. Most likely you would only need to search for the files ending in Nx. But for this test, let's just search all the files you would typically find in the Syracuse folder. My example doesn't have as many as you would find in the typical installation. 

To start, launch Notepad++. Once loaded, press Ctrl+Shift+F. Then, enter the values as in the screen shot below. In the 'Find what' field enter 'error' without the quotes. Next, go
to the Directory field and type in the location of the Syracuse log files. In our example, type 'c:\Syracuse' without the quotes. I have unchecked the 'In all sub-folders' option that
is set on by default. If you need to include additional sub-folders, then leave this option checked.  

And finally, click the 'Find All' button. When the search has completed, you will see the results in the Search results pane at the bottom of the Notepad++ screen.

Look at the next screenshot. The search result tells us that 'error' had 3081 hits across 4 files in the directory. One file had zero hits for 'error'. I clicked on the handles (+/-) signs to the left of each line to collapse each search result group. These results show how many hits of the search-word 'error' was found per log file

If you click on plus sign the next to one of the Syracuse log files where the occurrence of 'error' was found, the lines will expand and you will then where are the 'error' were found. If you double click the line in the search result, the related Syracuse log file will be loaded in the pane above it. This can be helpful to see the lines before and after the error message.

I hope these steps provides you an example using Notepad++ to search across multiple Syracuse log files. I am sure it will help you reduce the time it takes when searching for errors in these logs files.