In order to provide usage information over a long period of time, BIS keeps a set of log files in a specific directory. The log files can also be used by the web server administrator or BIS application developer to determine usage patterns of web applications on a BIS server system. The BIS log files consist of variable-length records comprised of space-separated fields. If a field contains spaces or special characters, the field is quoted. If a field is omitted, it is replaced by a dash (-) character.