Frequently Asked Questions
==========================

>--

Q: Is it possible to specify the character set?
Q: My logs contain Unicode (UTF-8, UTF-16, etc.) and FISG chokes on them!
A: Unfortunately there is no solution to this, FISG currently does
   not handle character sets in any way. It also relies on some
   codes to be like in ISO8859-* charsets.

   While it is possible that I'll rework FISG to support unicode
   (UTF-8 input and output, internally using UTF-32 for processing)
   in future, it is not high on my priority list.

>--

Q: Is there any easy way to create a userfile?
A: Well.. yes and no. It's always best to do this by hand, but
   since FISG v0.3.11, you can use commandline option "-d"
   (dump userfile) in conjunction with few configuration settings
   to ease the making of initial userfile:

   1) Set following options TEMPORARILY in config file:
      gen_auto_follow_nicks = yes
      gen_auto_follow_heuristics = yes

   2) Run fisg with your normal options, but add "-d newuser.cfg"
      to dump the automagically gathered user information in file
      "newuser.cfg".

   3) Edit "newuser.cfg" to remove any mistakes made by FISG's
      automatic user heuristics.

   4) Set AT LEAST "gen_auto_follow_heuristics = no" in config,
      this option is not meant for casual usage! You may leave
      "gen_auto_follow_nicks = yes" if you want, but be aware
      of the consequences.

   5) It might be a good idea to leave the userfile dumping option
      in place for debugging purposes (in case it seems somebody's
      stats go to wrong person due to automatic combining of nicks).

>--

Q: How do I create my own input format?

A: This is not a simple question. You should be familiar with some
   basic pattern matching (for example regular expressions, aka regexps)
   and be patient enough to read "PARSER" and "logformat.cfg".

   Tokens used in patterns for FISG's parser engine are explained in
   "PARSER". A simple example format is specified in "logformat.cfg".

>--

Q: I'm using mIRC/Irssi/whatever, but FISG does not seem to work
   correctly for these logs (I get missing stats, zero stats, etc.)
   What gives?

A: In some programs (including especially mIRC and Irssi), the
   log output can be altered. FISG only supports the default
   formats, thus if you are using any scripts or have changed
   the settings yourself, you can't expect FISG to magically adapt.

   If you want to use FISG anyway, create your own logformat and
   specify it to FISG. See "logformat.cfg" for more information.

>--

Q: Would you add support for 'Most used words' and/or
   'Most referenced nick'?
A: No.

>--

Q: I'd like to have FISG supporting my own language /
   I want internationalization support, can you add it?

A: It's on my TO-DO-list, but scheduled for v0.5.x-development series
   (and subsequently will be on 0.6.x-stable)

>--

Q: What do those silly faces (smileys) mean?
A: They describe the relative happiness-level of given user.
   The algorithm for calculating the happiness isn't too robust
   currently, so most faces are too sad, but it will be improved.

>--

Q: I use FISG to generate many statistics and would like a global
   template configuration file for general settings!
A: It is possible. Just give several -c options to FISG, as follows:

	fisg -c global.cfg -c somechannel.cfg [...]

Configs specified later in commandline will override the settings
in previous files.

>--

Q: I have lots of separate logfiles, how do I give them to FISG?
A: If you are using Windows, you can only use "*" asterisk and "?" like:

	fisg.exe -f mirc *.log

Under UNIX you can ALSO use the standard find(1) utility, for example
if you have logs in different subdirectories under "/path/to/logs"

	fisg -f irssi `find /path/to/logs -type f -name "*.log"`

Please see the find(1) man-page for more information.

>--

Q: I have logfiles from Irssi and Eggdrop and I want to have them all in same stats!
A: It is possible to specify format for every given logfile, example:

	fisg -c mychan.conf -f eggdrop eggdrop.log* -f irssi irssi.log other-irssi.log

The eggdrop.log* will then be parsed as eggdrop-format, etc.

>--

Q: I want to create stats for many channels, what should I do?
A: If you know shell-scripting under UNIX, it's quite simple.

See example scripts "*-multichan.sh" under unix/-subdir. Under Windows,
you can create a batch-file (.BAT). I'll add more example scripts soon.

>--

Q: There are duplicate nicks (users) in the top-list! Did I just find a bug?
A: Most probably you have forgot to specify the user's nick in the NICKLIST
in userfile. (Hey, the reminder in example users.cfg is there for a reason ;)

For example somebody in your channel is called "TheKing" and has also used
nicks "TheKing_", "TheKing__" and "daKing". A common mistake is to following
line in the userlist:

	TheKing:TheKing_ TheKing__ daKing:

So, what's the problem? Above line specifies "TheKing" as USERNAME, not NICK.
It is important to remember that they are completely distinct concepts in FISG!
The correct definition line would be:

	TheKing:TheKing TheKing_ TheKing__ daKing:

or a shorter version, using pattern matching:

	TheKing:TheKing* daKing:

>--