# Syntax for readable long lines in logstash config

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/syntax-for-readable-long-lines-in-logstash-config/88754>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [June 8, 2017, 6:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/syntax-for-readable-long-lines-in-logstash-config/88754 "2017-06-08T18:53:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![selivan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/selivan/32/18914_2.png) [@selivan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/selivan)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 6:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/syntax-for-readable-long-lines-in-logstash-config/88754/1 "2017-06-08T18:53:23Z")

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I am using a very long grok templates to parse some complex logs like mysql slow log. It looks ugly in config: very long string, full of characters like `(?<z>%{ZZ})?` - hard to read and hard to write. Does logstash config format support a multi-line strings, something like in python?

```python
mystring = """very
long
but
still
readable
line"""

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nzamecnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/76d3ee/32.png) [@nzamecnik](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/nzamecnik)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 6:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/syntax-for-readable-long-lines-in-logstash-config/88754/2 "2017-06-08T18:56:13Z")

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Hello, please reference the Logstash docs for how to do this:

[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-codecs-multiline.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-codecs-multiline.html)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![selivan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/selivan/32/18914_2.png) [@selivan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/selivan)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/syntax-for-readable-long-lines-in-logstash-config/88754/3 "2017-06-08T19:01:55Z")

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I am shipping multiline message altogether, so I don't need multiline codec to merge separate lines back in one message. I am happy with grok patterns like this: `"(?m)%{DATA}\n%{DATA}\n%{DATA}"`.

I just want to make config human readable, so I need some syntax hack to split one very long line into several.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/syntax-for-readable-long-lines-in-logstash-config/88754/4 "2017-07-08T19:02:29Z")

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