Overview

spl_transpiler provides a high-performance, highly portable, convenient tool for adapting common SPL code into PySpark code when possible, making it easy to migrate from Splunk to other data platforms for log processing. The project started as a Rust + Python port of Databricks Labs' spl_transpiler, but at this point is far more usable and feature-complete than the original.

Installation

You can install the basic library with

pip install spl_transpiler

or install all tools using

pip install spl_transpiler[cli,runtime]

Usage

from spl_transpiler import convert_spl_to_pyspark

print(convert_spl_to_pyspark(r"""multisearch
[index=regionA | fields +country, orders]
[index=regionB | fields +country, orders]"""))

# spark.table("regionA").select(
#     F.col("country"),
#     F.col("orders"),
# ).unionByName(
#     spark.table("regionB").select(
#         F.col("country"),
#         F.col("orders"),
#     ),
#     allowMissingColumns=True,
# )

Interactive CLI

For demonstration purposes and ease of use, an interactive CLI is also provided.

pip install spl_transpiler[cli]
python -m spl_transpiler

This provides an in-terminal user interface (using textual) where you can type an SPL query and see the converted Pyspark code in real time, alongside a visual representation of how the transpiler is understanding your query.

Runtime

The Runtime is a library provided (currently) as part of the SPL Transpiler which can provide more robust implementation as well as an SPL-like authoring experience when writing PySpark code directly.

The runtime is optional and must be installed explicitly:

pip install spl_transpiler[runtime]

For example, the following code snippets are equivalent:

In SPL (which can be transpiled and run on Spark):

sourcetype="cisco"
| eval x=len(raw)
| stats max(x) AS longest BY source

In the SPL Runtime:

from pyspark.sql import functions as F
from spl_transpiler.runtime import commands, functions
df_1 = commands.search(None, sourcetype=F.lit("cisco"))
df_2 = commands.eval(df_1, x=functions.eval.len(F.col("raw")))
df_3 = commands.stats(
    df_2, by=[F.col("source")], longest=functions.stats.max(F.col("x"))
)
df_3

In raw PySpark without the Runtime, this is much more verbose and is less obviously equivalent:

from pyspark.sql import functions as F
spark.table(...).where(
    (F.col("sourcetype") == F.lit("cisco")),
).withColumn(
    "x",
    F.length(F.col("raw")),
).groupBy(
    [
        "source",
    ]
).agg(
    F.max(F.col("x")).alias("longest"),
)

This runtime is a collection of helper functions on top of PySpark, and can be intermingled with other PySpark code. This means you can leverage an SPL-like experience where convenient while still using regular PySpark code where convenient.

In addition to these helper functions, the runtime also provides UDFs (user-defined functions) to provide data processing functions that aren't natively available in Spark. For example, in eval is_local=cidrmatch("10.0.0.0/8", ip), the cidrmatch function has no direct equivalent in Spark. The runtime provides a UDF that can be used as follows, either directly:

from pyspark.sql import functions as F
from spl_transpiler.runtime import udfs

df = df.withColumn("is_local", udfs.cidr_match("10.0.0.0/8", F.col("ip")))

Or via the runtime:

from pyspark.sql import functions as F
from spl_transpiler.runtime import commands, functions
df_1 = commands.eval(None, is_local=functions.eval.cidrmatch("10.0.0.0/8", F.col("ip")))
df_1

The transpiler, by default, will not assume the presence of the runtime. You need to explicitly allow the runtime to enable these features:

from spl_transpiler import convert_spl_to_pyspark
convert_spl_to_pyspark(
    '''eval is_local=cidrmatch("10.0.0.0/8", ip)''',
    allow_runtime=True
)

Why?

Why transpile SPL into Spark? Because a huge amount of domain knowledge is locked up in the Splunk ecosystem, but Splunk is not always the optimal place to store and analyze data. Transpiling existing queries can make it easier for analysts and analytics to migrate iteratively onto other platforms. SPL is also a very laser-focused language for certain analytics, and in most cases it's far more concise than other languages (PySpark or SQL) at log processing tasks. Therefore, it may be preferable to continue writing queries in SPL and use a transpiler layer to make that syntax viable on various platforms.

Why rewrite the Databricks Lab transpiler? A few reasons:

1. The original transpiler is written in Scala and assumes access to a Spark environment. That requires a JVM to execute and possibly a whole ecosystem of software (maybe even a running Spark cluster) to be available. This transpiler stands alone and compiles natively to any platform.
2. While Scala is a common language in the Spark ecosystem, Spark isn't the only ecosystem that would benefit from having an SPL transpiler. By providing a transpiler that's both easy to use in Python and directly linkable at a system level, it becomes easy to embed and adapt the transpiler for any other use case too.
3. Speed. Scala's plenty fast, to be honest, but Rust is mind-numbingly fast. This transpiler can parse SPL queries and generate equivalent Python code in a fraction of a millisecond. This makes it viable to treat the transpiler as a realtime component, for example embedding it in a UI and re-computing the converted results after every keystroke.
4. Maintainability. Rust's type system helps keep things unambiguous as data passes through parsers and converters, and built-in unit testing makes it easy to adapt and grow the transpiler without risk of breaking existing features. While Rust is undoubtedly a language with a learning curve, the resulting code is very hard to break without noticing. This makes it much easier to maintain than a similarly complicated system would be in Python.

Contributing

This project is in early development. While it parses most common SPL queries and can convert a non-trivial variety of queries to PySpark, it's extremely limited and not yet ready for any serious usage. However, it lays a solid foundation for the whole process and is modular enough to easily add incremental features to.

Ways to contribute:

• Add SPL queries and what the equivalent PySpark could would be. These test cases can drive development and prioritize the most commonly used features.
• Add runtime functionality (commands, functions, and UDFS) with supporting tests.
• Add known input and output data pairs with associated SPL queries as tests for future implementation.

Support Matrix

Search Commands

A complete list of built-in Splunk commands is provided on the Splunk documentation page.

It is not the goal of this transpiler to support every feature of every SPL command. Splunk and Spark are two different platforms and not everything that is built in to Splunk makes sense to trivially convert to Spark. What's far more important is supporting most queries (say, 90% of all queries), which only requires supporting a reasonable number of the most commonly used commands.

For reference, however, here is a complete table of Splunk commands and the current and planned support status in this transpiler.

Support status can be one of the following:

• None: This command will result in a syntax error in the SPL parser, and is completely unrecognized.
• Parser: This command can be parsed from SPL into a syntax tree, but cannot currently be rendered back as Pyspark code.
• Partial: This command can be parsed and rendered back to functional Pyspark code. Not all features may be supported.
• Complete: This command can be parsed and rendered back to functional Pyspark code. All intended features are supported. This library is still early in its development, and commands might get marked as Complete while still having unknown bugs or limitations.

Commands that don't yet support the Runtime can still be converted to raw PySpark code. The only difference will be that the PySpark code will be verbose and native, rather than using the SPL-like interface the runtime provides.

Command	Support	Runtime	Target
High Priority
bin (bucket)	Partial		Yes
convert	Yes		Yes
dedup	Parser		Yes
eval	Partial	Yes	Yes
eventstats	Partial		Yes
fields	Yes		Yes
fillnull	Partial	Yes	Yes
geom	None		Yes
geomfilter	None		Yes
geostats	None		Yes
head	Partial		Yes
history	None		Yes
inputlookup	Parser		Yes
iplocation	None		Yes
join	Partial		Yes
lookup	Partial		Yes
metadata	None		Yes
mstats	None		Yes
multisearch	Partial		Yes
mvexpand	Parser		Yes
outputlookup	None		Yes
rare	Yes		Yes
regex	Yes		Yes
rename	Partial		Yes
rex	Partial		Yes
search	Partial	Yes	Yes
sort	Partial		Yes
spath	Partial		Yes
stats	Partial	Yes	Yes
streamstats	Parser		Yes
table	Partial		Yes
tail	Yes		Yes
top	Yes		Yes
tstats	Partial	Yes	Yes
where	Partial		Yes
Planned/Supported
addtotals	Partial		Yes
anomalydetection	None		Maybe
append	None		Maybe
appendpipe	None		Maybe
chart	None		Maybe
collect	Parser		Maybe
extract (kv)	None		Maybe
foreach	None		Yes
format	Parser		Yes
from	None		Yes
makecontinuous	None		Maybe
makemv	None		Maybe
makeresults	Parser		Yes
map	Parser		Yes
multikv	None		Maybe
replace	None		Maybe
return	Parser		Yes
transaction	None		Yes
xmlkv	None		Yes
Unsupported
abstract	None
accum	None
addcoltotals	None
addinfo	None
analyzefields	None
anomalies	None
anomalousvalue	None
appendcols	None
arules	None
associate	None
autoregress	None
bucketdir	None
cluster	None
cofilter	None
concurrency	None
contingency	None
correlate	None
datamodel	Partial	Yes
dbinspect	None
delete	None
delta	None
diff	None
erex	None
eventcount	None
fieldformat	None
fieldsummary	None
filldown	None
findtypes	None
folderize	None
gauge	None
gentimes	None
highlight	None
iconify	None
inputcsv	None
kmeans	None
kvform	None
loadjob	None
localize	None
localop	None
mcollect	None
metasearch	None
meventcollect	None
mpreview	None
msearch	None
mvcombine	Parser
nomv	None
outlier	None		Maybe
outputcsv	None
outputtext	None
overlap	None
pivot	None
predict	None
rangemap	None
redistribute	None
reltime	None
require	None
rest	None
reverse	None
rtorder	None
savedsearch	None
script (run)	None
scrub	None
searchtxn	None
selfjoin	None
sendalert	None
sendemail	None
set	None
setfields	None
sichart	None
sirare	None
sistats	None
sitimechart	None
sitop	None
strcat	None
tags	None
timechart	None		Maybe
timewrap	None
tojson	None
transpose	None
trendline	None
tscollect	None
typeahead	None
typelearner	None
typer	None
union	None
uniq	None
untable	None
walklex	None
x11	None
xmlunescape	None
xpath	None
xyseries	None

Functions

There are two primary kinds of functions: Evaluation functions ( primarily for use in eval) and Statistical and Charting functions ( primarily for use in stats).

Like with commands, there are a lot of built-in functions and not all of them may map cleanly to Spark. This transpiler intends to support most queries and will thus support the most common functions. However, there is no goal at this time to support all Splunk functions.

If you are using the runtime, these functions are available as follows:

from spl_transpiler.runtime import functions
x = functions.eval.len(...)
y = functions.stats.max(...)

These functions are all wrappers and provide no new functionality. In cases where the SPL function's behavior can be matched by a built-in function from the core Spark library, this wrapper simply converts an SPL-like syntax into the Spark equivalent. In other cases where no Spark function exists (e.g. cidrmatch), the wrapper calls a custom UDF from spl_transpiler.runtime.udfs. Even in these cases, the wrapper might still provide a more SPL-like syntax around the UDF, since the UDF is written and optimized for use apart from the wrapper (e.g. it might only provide part of the functionality of the overall SPL function).

Category	Subcategory	Function	Support	Runtime	Target
Eval	Bitwise	bit_and	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Bitwise	bit_or	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Bitwise	bit_not	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Bitwise	bit_xor	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Bitwise	bit_shift_left	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Bitwise	bit_shift_right	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	case	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	cidrmatch	Yes*	Yes (UDF)	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	coalesce	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	false	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	if	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	in	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	like	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	lookup	No	No
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	match	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	null	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	nullif	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	searchmatch	No	No
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	true	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Comparison and Conditional	validate	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Conversion	ipmask	No	Yes (UDF)
Eval	Conversion	printf	No	Yes (UDF)
Eval	Conversion	tonumber	Partial	Yes (UDF)	Yes
Eval	Conversion	tostring	Partial	Yes (UDF)	Yes
Eval	Cryptographic	md5	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Cryptographic	sha1	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Cryptographic	sha256	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Cryptographic	sha512	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Date and Time	now	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Date and Time	relative_time	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Date and Time	strftime	Partial	Partial	Yes
Eval	Date and Time	strptime	Partial	Partial	Yes
Eval	Date and Time	time	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Informational	isbool	No	No	No
Eval	Informational	isint	No	No	No
Eval	Informational	isnotnull	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Informational	isnull	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Informational	isnum	No	No	No
Eval	Informational	isstr	No	No	No
Eval	Informational	typeof	No	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_object	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_append	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_array	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_array_to_mv	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_extend	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_extract	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_extract_exact	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_keys	Yes	Yes
Eval	JSON	json_set	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_set_exact	No	No
Eval	JSON	json_valid	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	abs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	ceiling (ceil)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	exact	Yes*	Yes*	No
Eval	Mathematical	exp	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	floor	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	ln	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	log	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	pi	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	pow	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	round	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	sigfig	No	Yes	No
Eval	Mathematical	sqrt	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Mathematical	sum	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Multivalue	commands	No	No
Eval	Multivalue	mvappend	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Multivalue	mvcount	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Multivalue	mvdedup	No	No
Eval	Multivalue	mvfilter	No	No	Yes
Eval	Multivalue	mvfind	No	No
Eval	Multivalue	mvindex	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Multivalue	mvjoin	No	No	Yes
Eval	Multivalue	mvmap	No	No
Eval	Multivalue	mvrange	No	No
Eval	Multivalue	mvsort	No	No
Eval	Multivalue	mvzip	Yes	Yes
Eval	Multivalue	mv_to_json_array	No	No
Eval	Multivalue	split	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Statistical	avg	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Statistical	max	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Statistical	min	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Statistical	random	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	len	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	lower	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	ltrim	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	replace	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	rtrim	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	spath	No	No
Eval	Text	substr	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	trim	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	upper	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Text	urldecode	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	acos	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	acosh	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	asin	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	asinh	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	atan	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	atan2	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	atanh	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	cos	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	cosh	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	hypot	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	sin	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	sinh	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	tan	Yes	Yes	Yes
Eval	Trigonometry and Hyperbolic	tanh	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	avg	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	count	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	distinct_count (dc)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	estdc	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	estdc_error	No	No
Stats	Aggregate	exactperc	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	max	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	mean	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	median	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	min	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	mode	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	percentile	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	range	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	stdev	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	stdevp	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	sum	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	sumsq	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	upperperc	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	var	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Aggregate	varp	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Event order	first	Yes	Yes
Stats	Event order	last	Yes	Yes
Stats	Multivalue stats and chart	list	Yes	Yes
Stats	Multivalue stats and chart	values	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Time	earliest	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Time	earliest_time	Yes?	Yes?
Stats	Time	latest	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stats	Time	latest_time	Yes?	Yes?
Stats	Time	per_day	No	No
Stats	Time	per_hour	No	No
Stats	Time	per_minute	No	No
Stats	Time	per_second	No	No
Stats	Time	rate	Yes?	Yes?
Stats	Time	rate_avg	No	Yes?
Stats	Time	rate_sum	No	Yes?

* Pyspark output depends on custom UDFs instead of native Spark functions. Some of these may be provided by this package, some may be provided by Databricks Sirens.

Prioritized TODO list

• Support macro syntax (separate pre-processing function?)
• Use sample queries to create prioritized list of remaining commands
• ~~ Incorporate standard macros that come with CIM~~
• Support re-using intermediate results (saving off as tables or variables, .cache())
• Migrate existing commands into runtime
• Migrate eval, stats, and collect functions into runtime
• Support custom Python UDFs
• Finish supporting desired but not directly-mappable evals functions using UDFs
• Support {} and @ in field names
• Support Scala UDFs
• Support SQL output

Contributing

Installation

You'll need cargo (Rust) and python installed. I recommend using uv for managing the Python environment, dependencies, and tools needed for this project.

Note that PySpark is currently only compatible with Python 3.11 and older, 3.12 and 3.13 are not yet supported. E.g., you can use uv venv --python 3.11 to create a .venv virtual environment with the appropriate Python interpreter. spl_transpiler is developed against Python 3.10 and likely requires at least that.

This project uses maturin and pyo3 for the Rust <-> Python interfacing, you'll need to install maturin, e.g. using uvx maturin commands which will auto-install the tool on first use.

This project uses pre-commit to automate linting and formatting. E.g. you can use uvx pre-commit install to install pre-commit and set up its git hooks.

You can then build and install spl_transpiler and all dependencies. First, make sure you have your virtual environment activated (uv commands will detect the venv by default if you use that, else follow activation instructions for your virtual environment tool), then run uv pip install -e .[cli,test,runtime].

Running Tests

You can test the core transpiler using cargo test. The Rust test suites include full end-to-end tests of query conversions, ensuring that the transpiler compiles and converts a wide range of known inputs into expected outputs.

The Python-side tests can be run with pytest and primarily ensure that the Rust <-> Python interface is behaving as expected. It also includes runtime tests, which validate that hand-written and transpiled runtime code does what is expected using known input/output data pairs running in an ephemeral Spark cluster.

There is also a large-scale Python test that can be run using pytest tests/test_sample_files_parse.py. By default, this test is ignored because it is slow and currently does not pass. It runs the transpiler on >1,800 sample SPL queries and ensure that the transpiler doesn't crash, generating detailed logs and error summaries along the way. This test is useful when expanding the transpiler to support new syntax, command, functions, etc. to see if the changes cause more commands/queries to transpile successfully. It's also useful for identifying what elements of SPL should be prioritized next to support more real-world use cases.

Acknowledgements

This project is deeply indebted to several other projects:

• Databricks Labs' Transpiler provided most of the starting point for this parser, including an unambiguous grammar definition and numerous test cases which have been copied mostly verbatim. The license for that transpiler can be found here. Copyright 2021-2022 Databricks, Inc.
• Numerous real-world SPL queries have been provided by Splunk Security Content under Apache 2.0 License. Copyright 2022 Splunk Inc.