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Tell HN: ChatGPT is fantastic for finding and solving issues in logs

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Tell HN: ChatGPT is fantastic for finding and solving issues in logs

#1

Post by Ldorigo »

Just paste in a chunk of systemd (or whatever) logs and start asking questions. Often just pasting in the logs and pressing enter results in it identifying potential problems and suggesting solutions. It helped me troubleshoot a huge amount of issues on linux desktops and servers that would have taken me a lot longer with google - even if it doesn't always give the right solution, 99% of the time it at least points to the source of the error and gives me searchable keywords.

Note it works much better with GPT4 - gpt3.5 tends to hallucinate a bit too often.

Re: Tell HN: ChatGPT is fantastic for finding and solving issues in logs

#3

Post by roflyear »

I wish people would focus on these exceptional strengths of the model rather than blabbing about AGI or whatever.

Similarly to you, I have been able to find issues with logs, formatting, asking it quick query questions in [whatever flavor of query language XYZ service likes to use], etc.. and it's really, really good.

The alternative is to muscle through it, using a lot of energy, writing my own parser or something dumb, or to use Google - which basically isn't usable anymore!

But you have people who are like "GPT CODED MY ENTIRE WEBSITE" and "GPT TAUGHT ME QUANTUM PHYSICS" and I'm like... uh... big doubt my man...

Re: Tell HN: ChatGPT is fantastic for finding and solving issues in logs

#4

Post by heliophobicdude »

roflyear wrote: post #3

I wish people would focus on these exceptional strengths of the model rather than blabbing about AGI or whatever. Similarly to you, I have been able to find issues with logs, formatting, asking it quick query questions in [whatever flavor of query language XYZ service likes to use], etc.. and it's really, really good. The alternative is to muscle through it, using a lot of energy, writing my own parser or something d…

Like Simon said, it's a great language calculator!

Also, adapting to its quirks is important. Using the responses from both you and it to scaffold the final response is more effective than giving only one shot

Re: Tell HN: ChatGPT is fantastic for finding and solving issues in logs

#5

Post by sharemywin »

roflyear wrote: post #3

I wish people would focus on these exceptional strengths of the model rather than blabbing about AGI or whatever. Similarly to you, I have been able to find issues with logs, formatting, asking it quick query questions in [whatever flavor of query language XYZ service likes to use], etc.. and it's really, really good. The alternative is to muscle through it, using a lot of energy, writing my own parser or something d…

I think it does speed up learning a new language(programming) or library. It's not perfect but it's a good companion to a tutorial. or next step past a basic tutorial.

especially sample code. I created a script to connect to my email address and pull down my emails. connect to HN and pull done articles to put in sqlite.

really quick features, not because it's complicated but because it's tedious.

Re: Tell HN: ChatGPT is fantastic for finding and solving issues in logs

#6

Post by roflyear »

sharemywin wrote: post #5
roflyear wrote: post #3

I wish people would focus on these exceptional strengths of the model rather than blabbing about AGI or whatever. Similarly to you, I have been able to find issues with logs, formatting, asking it quick query questions in [whatever flavor of query language XYZ service likes to use], etc.. and it's really, really good. The alternative is to muscle through it, using a lot of energy, writing my own parser or something d…

I think it does speed up learning a new language(programming) or library. It's not perfect but it's a good companion to a tutorial. or next step past a basic tutorial. especially sample code. I created a script to connect to my email address and pull down my emails. connect to HN and pull done articles to put in sqlite. really quick features, not because it's complicated but because it's tedious.

Right but you have to be really careful with that use.

Re: Tell HN: ChatGPT is fantastic for finding and solving issues in logs

#8

Post by toomuchtodo »

swah wrote: post #2

Yesterday I dumped a broken markdown table and asked for the first "column" as CSV values. Works really well for this stuff too.

I love that it’s replacing sed, awk, and cut in the same way you’d bring artillery to a knife fight.

Re: Tell HN: ChatGPT is fantastic for finding and solving issues in logs

#10

Post by Veen »

swah wrote: post #2

Yesterday I dumped a broken markdown table and asked for the first "column" as CSV values. Works really well for this stuff too.

I use it for similar stuff all the time. Yesterday I had a csv full of multi-word hashtags with no spaces between the words. I needed to split them all into separate words, add spaces, and remove the #. It would have been pain to write code to reliably add spaces, especially because many of the hashtags contained non-standard words and abbreviations, but GPT-4 handled it no problem. Saved me hours.
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