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Simple Log Service:How do I optimize regular expressions?

Last Updated:Dec 12, 2023

You can optimize regular expressions to improve the Logtail collection performance.

The following describes some suggestions about how to optimize regular expressions:

  • Use precise characters.

    Do not arbitrarily use .* to match fields because this regular expression can match with a wide range of search results. Such actions can lead to mismatches occurring or a decrease in matching performance. For example, to return results of fields that consist only of letters, use [A-Za-z].

  • Use correct measure words.

    Do not arbitrarily use plus signs (+), commas (,), or asterisks. For example, to match target IP addresses, use \d instead of \d+ or \d{1,3} because of its higher efficiency.

  • Debug multiple times.

    Debugging is similar to troubleshooting. You can debug the time consumed by your regular expressions at the Regex101 website, and promptly optimize them if there is a large amount of backtracking.