Setting a start line, or end line, or both, helps to narrow down the range of lines of text to apply a parser and get more accurate results. When there is no start/end line configured in a parser, it means the matching scope includes the full-text range.

Note: It’s not recommended to declare variables in the line pattern of a start/end line. If a variable is defined in the line pattern of a start/end line, it will be treated as a dummy variable, and its values will not be extracted.

 
You can select either of the following ways to add a start line or end line.

Option1: Directly Select a Line

Highlight the target line of text in the Sample area, and click the arrow () to duplicate it in the Start Line field.

For example, without a start line, the table parser always parses Table A by using the default top-down sequence. To parse Table B instead, you need to add a start line as follows. The line of text that matches the defined start line is highlighted and marked as Start Line.

Option2: Use the Line of Selected Variable

Select one of the variables that have been defined from the Start Line dropdown to set the line where the variable resides as the start line.

The variables that can be referenced in the dropdown may include:

▪the variables pre-defined in an ahead keyword parser.

▪the built-in variables for the last row and first row of a table variable in an ahead table parser, e.g., $Table1.FirstRow, and $Table2.LastRow.

For example, the following raw text contains two tables of the same format, Table A and B. You can define a table parser AS_1 to parse Table A, and define a table parser AS_2 to parse Table B. Without a start line, the table parser AS_2 always parses Table A by using the default top-down sequence. Selecting $AS_1.lastRow in the Start Line field indicates the last row of Table A will be used as the start line of table parser AS_2.