A common use of the stats command is to count events. To see how this works, run the following search query. The SPL will return a single number representing the count of all events in the last 30 minutes. Notice that the pipe that precedes the stats command filters the data that will be included in the final count:
SPL> index=main earliest=-30m latest=now | stats count
Change the time modifier and the number should be reduced:
SPL> index=main earliest=-15m latest=now | stats count
You may be wondering where the count came from. The true format of a stats command is stats function(X). This asks the system to return the result of the function based on the field X. When the count function is used without parentheses, Splunk assumes that you are looking for the count of all events in the given search.
The stats command becomes a very powerful...
