# Convert seconds (float number) into a more legible datatype
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257
**Category:** Kibana
**Created:** [August 12, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257 "2015-08-12T13:10:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pjvv1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pjvv1)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/1 "2015-08-12T13:10:12Z")
Dear friends,
We have an ELK to get information about the use of one of our software applications.
We have a field for session duration which represent the duration (time) of a session in seconds. That is not very human-readable so I would like to change or convert it to something like "hh hours mm minutes ss seconds"
Can you tell me the way to do that?
Thanks in advance.
Regards
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/2 "2015-08-13T00:06:08Z")
You _might_ be able to do this with a [scripted field](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/managing-fields.html#create-scripted-field), but I think it'd be tough.
Field formatters would probably also be able to do this, but they don't do time based formatters yet.
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### Author:  [@asafyigal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/asafyigal)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2015, 6:03am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/3 "2015-08-13T06:03:48Z")
The easiest way is to do this in logstash.
-- Asaf.
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/4 "2015-08-13T06:07:29Z")
Heh, yeah, a lot easier! 😃
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### Author:  [@pjvv1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pjvv1)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2015, 9:13am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/5 "2015-08-13T09:13:45Z")
Thank you all for your answer.
After reading them, I've changed my question to "how to do it in ElasticSearch?" 😉
I've been looking for information about ElasticSearch datatypes but I haven't found any datatype related to time but dates, I mean I don't know hot to convert a float into a time expression (hh MM ss)
Thanks again.
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### Author:  [@tbragin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tbragin)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/6 "2015-08-13T16:49:16Z")
I think you have to map your date as a date data type in ES:
[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/mapping-date-format.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/mapping-date-format.html)
Once you have that, you can use date formatters in K4:
[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/managing-fields.html#\_date\_field\_formatters](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/managing-fields.html#_date_field_formatters)
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### Author:  [@pjvv1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pjvv1)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/7 "2015-08-13T17:14:40Z")
Thank you. My problem is that the field is not a date, it's the number of
seconds (it represents a session duration), so transforming the float
(seconds) data type to a time expression is not direct.
If I specify that field is a date in ElasticSearch, it will understand it
is a date represented in UTC float and that's not the case.
Am I right? or did not understand your answer?
Thanks again.
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### Author:  [@tbragin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tbragin)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/8 "2015-08-13T20:49:26Z")
Oh, right - I misunderstood what you were trying to do ☹
Converting a float representing setting duration to a custom time display is not possible at the moment, but is a reasonable enhancement request. Would you mind filing an issue in Github, if it's important to you? [https://github.com/elastic/kibana/issues](https://github.com/elastic/kibana/issues)
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### Author:  [@asafyigal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/asafyigal)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2015, 7:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/9 "2015-08-18T07:36:10Z")
@pjvv1 - In Kibana 4.1 you have the ability to formal a number field into date format - check out this formatting options for additional info- [https://adamwdraper.github.io/Numeral-js/](https://adamwdraper.github.io/Numeral-js/)
-- Asaf.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 2:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/convert-seconds-float-number-into-a-more-legible-datatype/27257/10 "2017-07-06T14:14:41Z")