Splunk Core Certified User Practice Exam

Which command is used to get distinct values of a field?

1. top

2. count

3. dedup

4. unique

The correct answer is: dedup

The command that is used to get distinct values of a field is "dedup." This command works by removing duplicate events based on the specified field, ensuring that only the first occurrence of each distinct value is retained in the search results. This is particularly useful when you want to simplify your data and focus on unique entries for analysis or reporting. For example, if you have a dataset that logs various user actions, using the dedup command on the user ID field will return a list containing each user only once, without repeating entries. This helps in scenarios such as identifying all unique users who registered or participated in an event without redundancy. Other commands like "top" and "count" serve different purposes: "top" returns the most common values along with their counts, rather than simply distinct values, while "count" tallies the total occurrences of a field's values, but does not filter for uniqueness. The "unique" command does not exist in Splunk, adding to the clarity that dedup is the correct choice for obtaining distinct field values.