In Splunk, thetransactioncommand is used to group events that share common characteristics into a single transaction1.By default, thetransactioncommand groups all matching events into a single transaction1.
However, you can use themaxspanoption to limit the time span of the transactions1.If the time span between the first and last event in a transaction exceeds themaxspanvalue, thetransactioncommand will start a new transaction1.
Therefore, if themaxspanoption is not included in the search, thetransactioncommand might produce multiple transactions instead of one if the time span between the first and last event in a transaction exceeds the defaultmaxspanvalue1.
Here is an example of how you can use themaxspanoption in a search:
index=main sourcetype=access_combined | transaction someuniqefield maxspan=1h In this search, thetransactioncommand groups events that share the samesomeuniqefieldvalue into a single transaction, but only if the time span between the first and last event in the transaction does not exceed 1 hour1.If the time span exceeds 1 hour, thetransactioncommand will start a new transaction1.