Editing Chat Text Remover Tool

Often users wish to submit logs to developers, but also want the privacy of having the chat text removed.  This page explains how to get and use a simple tool that removes chat text from log files.

This program will search for chat text from single name sources.  Multi-name character chat (NPCs) will remain.  For this reason it is better to use this tool rather than some other pattern matching tool which likely will not preserve NPC text.

If privacy is not a concern for you, then please do not use this tool and send the logs raw, as developers often get useful information from player discussions; such as players mentioning item drops, or players commenting on NPC stats and abilities.  Text from single name NPCs might also be lost.

== Getting the Program ==

This program is for Windows.  It is a lua script that is compiled to an executable.

Download the program from Torven's Google Drive using this link:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9w2lZ-BZM3ldFNiTVdhUGkySmM/view?usp=drive_link&resourcekey=0-190kaarqUTasuolrr5e2-Q Chat Text Remover Tool Download]

[[File:chat_text_remover_download.jpg]]

== Running the Program ==

Unzip it into a folder.  Copy your log files into that folder.  Run the executable.

[[File:chat_text_remover_folder.jpg]]

The executable will look for any .txt files in the folder, parse them, and output copies of those files without chat text in them.  The new file names will have "_cleaned" appended, like '''eqlog_soandso_52_cleaned.txt'''.

A modern processor will parse about 100 megs per minute.

[[File:chat_text_remover_running.jpg]]
@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 [[File:chat_text_remover_running.jpg]]
-== Alternative Method ==
-If you do not want to trust my binary, then you can download and run the uncompiled lua script in a lua interpreter.  The script code is easily readable so you can be sure that it's not doing anything nefarious.
-Download a Lua for Windows binary at sourceforge here: [http://luabinaries.sourceforge.net/download.html LuaBinaries]
-Unzip into a folder and copy your logs into that same folder.
-Download the lua script from Torven's Google Drive: [https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9w2lZ-BZM3lRHpaMVFXVGxGY2c chatremover.lua download] and place it into the folder.
-Open a command prompt in the folder.  You can do this by shift-right clicking on it and selecting 'Open command window here' from the drop down menu.
-Run lua with the script like so:
-[[File:chat_text_remover_alternative.jpg]]