When it comes to SAP Visualization Solutions by Nakisa (VSN), the log file is king. It is the source of information about all the transactions and activities carried out. In my first few weeks working with SAP VSN products I was quickly made aware of just how significant the CDS (Corporate Directory Services) log is and it is the foundation to solving at least a good 90% of issues encountered when configuring VSN applications.
The logs I found myself dealing with each day ranged in size from tens of lines to tens of thousands of lines. This to my mind made tracking down errors a rather tedious process and given that some of the errors were “expected”, it made it all the more frustrating.
It was actually when I came across the first log that was tens of thousands of lines long that I decided I would make time to find a better (‘quicker’) way to get the information from the file. In fact the method I describe here can be useful in a number of ways so even if you don’t deal with cds.log files every day you may still find the tools and ideas presented here useful.
