parse operator

Evaluates a string expression and parses its value into one or more calculated columns. The calculated columns return null values for unsuccessfully parsed strings. If there’s no need to use rows where parsing doesn’t succeed, prefer using the parse-where operator.

Syntax

T | parse [ kind=kind [ flags=regexFlags ]] expression with [ * ] stringConstant columnName [: columnType] [ * ] , …

Parameters

Supported kind values

Regex mode

In regex mode, parse translates the pattern to a regex. Use regular expressions to do the matching and use numbered captured groups that are handled internally. For example:

parse kind=regex Col with * <regex1> var1:string <regex2> var2:long

In the parse statement, the regex internally generated by the parse is .*?<regex1>(.*?)<regex2>(\-\d+).

• * was translated to .*?.

• string was translated to .*?.

• long was translated to \-\d+.

Returns

The input table extended according to the list of columns that are provided to the operator.

Examples

The examples in this section show how to use the syntax to help you get started.

The parse operator provides a streamlined way to extend a table by using multiple extract applications on the same string expression. This result is useful, when the table has a string column that contains several values that you want to break into individual columns. For example, a column that’s produced by a developer trace ("printf"/"Console.WriteLine") statement.

Parse and extend results

In the following example, the column EventText of table Traces contains strings of the form Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName={0}, totalSlices={1}, sliceNumber={2}, lockTime={3}, releaseTime={4}, previousLockTime={5}). The operation extends the table with six columns: resourceName, totalSlices, sliceNumber, lockTime, releaseTime, and previousLockTime.

let Traces = datatable(EventText: string)
    [
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=23, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=15, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:00)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=20, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=22, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=16, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00)"
];
Traces  
| parse EventText with * "resourceName=" resourceName ", totalSlices=" totalSlices: long * "sliceNumber=" sliceNumber: long * "lockTime=" lockTime ", releaseTime=" releaseTime: date "," * "previousLockTime=" previousLockTime: date ")" *  
| project resourceName, totalSlices, sliceNumber, lockTime, releaseTime, previousLockTime

Output

Extract email alias and DNS

In the following example, entries from the Contacts table are parsed to extract the alias and domain from an email address, and the domain from a website URL. The query returns the EmailAddress, EmailAlias, and WebsiteDomain columns, where the fullEmail column combines the parsed email aliases and domains.

let Leads=datatable(Contacts: string)
    [
    "Event: LeadContact (email=john@contosohotel.com, Website=https:contosohotel.com)",
	"Event: LeadContact (email=abi@fourthcoffee.com, Website=https:www.fourthcoffee.com)",
	"Event: LeadContact (email=nevena@treyresearch.com, Website=https:treyresearch.com)",
	"Event: LeadContact (email=faruk@tailspintoys.com, Website=https:tailspintoys.com)",
	"Event: LeadContact (email=ebere@relecloud.com, Website=https:relecloud.com)",
];
Leads
| parse Contacts with * "email=" alias:string "@" domain: string ", Website=https:" WebsiteDomain: string ")"
| project EmailAddress=strcat(alias, "@", domain), EmailAlias=alias, WebsiteDomain

Output

Regex mode

In the following example, regular expressions are used to parse and extract data from the EventText column. The extracted data is projected into new fields.

let Traces=datatable(EventText: string)
    [
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=23, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=15, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:00)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=20, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=22, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=16, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00)"
];
Traces  
| parse kind=regex EventText with "(.*?)[a-zA-Z]*=" resourceName @", totalSlices=\s*\d+\s*.*?sliceNumber=" sliceNumber: long  ".*?(previous)?lockTime=" lockTime ".*?releaseTime=" releaseTime ".*?previousLockTime=" previousLockTime: date "\\)"  
| project resourceName, sliceNumber, lockTime, releaseTime, previousLockTime

Output

Regex mode with regex flags

In the following example resourceName is extracted.

let Traces=datatable(EventText: string)
    [
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=23, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=15, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:00)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=20, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=22, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=16, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00)"
];
Traces
| parse kind=regex EventText with * "resourceName=" resourceName ',' *
| project resourceName

Output

If there are records where resourceName sometimes appears as lower-case and sometimes as upper-case, you might get nulls for some values.

The results in the previous example are unexpected, and include full event data since the default mode is greedy. To extract only resourceName, run the previous query with the non-greedy U, and disable case-sensitive i regex flags.

let Traces=datatable(EventText: string)
    [
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=23, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=15, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:00)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=20, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=22, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=16, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00)"
];
Traces
| parse kind=regex flags=Ui EventText with * "RESOURCENAME=" resourceName ',' *
| project resourceName

Output

If the parsed string has newlines, use the flag s, to parse the text.

let Traces=datatable(EventText: string)
    [
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler\ntotalSlices=27\nsliceNumber=23\nlockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01\nreleaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01\npreviousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler\ntotalSlices=27\nsliceNumber=15\nlockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00\nreleaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00\npreviousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:00)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler\ntotalSlices=27\nsliceNumber=20\nlockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01\nreleaseTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01\npreviousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler\ntotalSlices=27\nsliceNumber=22\nlockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:01\nreleaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00\npreviousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler\ntotalSlices=27\nsliceNumber=16\nlockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00\nreleaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00\npreviousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00)"
];
Traces
| parse kind=regex flags=s EventText with * "resourceName=" resourceName: string "(.*?)totalSlices=" totalSlices: long "(.*?)lockTime=" lockTime: datetime "(.*?)releaseTime=" releaseTime: datetime "(.*?)previousLockTime=" previousLockTime: datetime "\\)" 
| project-away EventText

Output

Relaxed mode

In the following relaxed mode example, the extended column totalSlices must be of type long. However, in the parsed string, it has the value nonValidLongValue. For the extended column, releaseTime, the value nonValidDateTime can’t be parsed as datetime. These two extended columns result in null values while the other columns, such as sliceNumber, still result in the correct values.

If you use option kind = simple for the following query, you get null results for all extended columns. This option is strict on extended columns, and is the difference between relaxed and simple mode.

let Traces=datatable(EventText: string)
    [
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=23, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=nonValidDateTime 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=15, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00, releaseTime=nonValidDateTime, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:00)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=nonValidLongValue, sliceNumber=20, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01, releaseTime=nonValidDateTime 08:40:01, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:39:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=27, sliceNumber=22, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:01, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:01)",
    "Event: NotifySliceRelease (resourceName=PipelineScheduler, totalSlices=nonValidLongValue, sliceNumber=16, lockTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, releaseTime=02/17/2016 08:41:00, previousLockTime=02/17/2016 08:40:00)"
];
Traces
| parse kind=relaxed EventText with * "resourceName=" resourceName ", totalSlices=" totalSlices: long ", sliceNumber=" sliceNumber: long * "lockTime=" lockTime ", releaseTime=" releaseTime: date "," * "previousLockTime=" previousLockTime: date ")" *
| project-away EventText

Output

Related content

• parse-json function
• extract function
• extract-all function
• extract-json function