Timestamp

Warning

This functionality is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official GA features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

The timestamp processor parses a timestamp from a field. By default the timestamp processor writes the parsed result to the @timestamp field. You can specify a different field by setting the target_field parameter. The timestamp value is parsed according to the layouts parameter. Multiple layouts can be specified and they will be used sequentially to attempt parsing the timestamp field.

Note

The timestamp layouts used by this processor are different than the formats supported by date processors in Logstash and Elasticsearch Ingest Node.

The layouts are described using a reference time that is based on this specific time:

Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 MST 2006

Since MST is GMT-0700, the reference time is:

01/02 03:04:05PM '06 -0700

To define your own layout, rewrite the reference time in a format that matches the timestamps you expect to parse. For more layout examples and details see the Go time package documentation.

If a layout does not contain a year then the current year in the specified timezone is added to the time value.

Example

Here is an example that parses the start_time field and writes the result to the @timestamp field then deletes the start_time field. When the processor is loaded, it will immediately validate that the two test timestamps parse with this configuration.

- timestamp:
    field: start_time
    layouts:
      - '2006-01-02T15:04:05Z'
      - '2006-01-02T15:04:05.999Z'
      - '2006-01-02T15:04:05.999-07:00'
    test:
      - '2019-06-22T16:33:51Z'
      - '2019-11-18T04:59:51.123Z'
      - '2020-08-03T07:10:20.123456+02:00'
- drop_fields:
    fields: [start_time]

Configuration settings

Note

Elastic Agent processors execute before ingest pipelines, which means that your processor configurations cannot refer to fields that are created by ingest pipelines or Logstash. For more limitations, refer to What are some limitations of using processors?

Name	Required	Default	Description
`field`	Yes		Source field containing the time to be parsed.
`target_field`	No	`@timestamp`	Target field for the parsed time value. The target value is always written as UTC.
`layouts`	Yes		Timestamp layouts that define the expected time value format. In addition layouts, `UNIX` and `UNIX_MS` are accepted.
`timezone`	No	`UTC`	IANA time zone name (for example, `America/New_York`) or fixed time offset (for example, `+0200`) to use when parsing times that do not contain a time zone. Specify `Local` to use the machine’s local time zone.
`ignore_missing`	No	`false`	Whether to ignore errors when the source field is missing.
`ignore_failure`	No	`false`	Whether to ignore all errors produced by the processor.
`test`	No		List of timestamps that must parse successfully when loading the processor.
`id`	No		Identifier for this processor instance. Useful for debugging.