code: def _count_by_date(self, fname, all_dates):
          
          if not os.path.isfile(fname):
              return {}
          d_log_sum = {}
          with open(fname, "r") as raw_log:
              for line in raw_log:
                  cols = line.split(',')
                  dte = cols[0].strip('"')[0:10].replace('-', '')
                  all_dates.append(dte)
                  if dte in d_log_sum:
                      d_log_sum[dte] += 1
                  else:
                      d_log_sum[dte] = 1
          return d_log_sum
docs: reads a logfile and returns a dictionary by date
          showing the count of log entries