# Comparison of String with number fails

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/comparison-of-string-with-number-fails/24480
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [June 27, 2015, 11:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/comparison-of-string-with-number-fails/24480 "2015-06-27T11:30:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![refaelos](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/refaelos/32/516_2.png) [@refaelos](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/refaelos)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 11:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/comparison-of-string-with-number-fails/24480/1 "2015-06-27T11:30:21Z")

</div>

Hey,

I'm transferring multiple events into ES using LS. For every event, i'm creating a timeStamp according to a milliseconds field:

```auto
  date {
    match => ["saveTime", "UNIX_MS"]
  }

```

**Many events succeed** but every once in a while LS just stops and I see this error:

```auto
...
:message=>"Exception in filterworker", "exception"=>#<ArgumentError: comparison of String with 1413763200000 failed>
...

```

Why does it happen?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![refaelos](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/refaelos/32/516_2.png) [@refaelos](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/refaelos)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 11:44am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/comparison-of-string-with-number-fails/24480/2 "2015-06-27T11:44:29Z")

</div>

The full backtrace is:

```auto
"backtrace"=>["org/jruby/RubyComparable.java:168:in `<'", "org/jruby/RubyString.java:1874:in `<'", "(eval):164:in `cond_func_5'", "org/jruby/RubyArray.java:1613:in `each'", "(eval):162:in `cond_func_5'", "(eval):95:in `filter_func'", "/opt/logstash/vendor/bundle/jruby/1.9/gems/logstash-core-1.5.0-java/lib/logstash/pipeline.rb:219:in `filterworker'", "/opt/logstash/vendor/bundle/jruby/1.9/gems/logstash-core-1.5.0-java/lib/logstash/pipeline.rb:156:in `start_filters'"], :level=>:error, :file=>"logstash/pipeline.rb", :line=>"231", :method=>"filterworker"

```

So I guess it happens on flush.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![refaelos](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/refaelos/32/516_2.png) [@refaelos](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/refaelos)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/comparison-of-string-with-number-fails/24480/3 "2015-06-28T13:16:17Z")

</div>

Solved this by adding another filter:

```auto
  mutate {
    convert => { "saveTime" => "integer" }
  }

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![jpizzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jpizzle](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jpizzle)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2016, 10:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/comparison-of-string-with-number-fails/24480/4 "2016-02-18T22:26:26Z")

</div>

Thanks! Rocked it. Appreciate the followup refaelos!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 5:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/comparison-of-string-with-number-fails/24480/5 "2017-07-06T05:10:44Z")

</div>