# Converting a string date to a Date field using scripted fields in kibana **URL:** \ **Category:** Kibana\ **Created:** [November 24, 2017, 2:43am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-a-string-date-to-a-date-field-using-scripted-fields-in-kibana/108952 "2017-11-24T02:43:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![iam.Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a9adbd/32.png) [@iam.Carrot](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/iam.Carrot)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 2:43am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-a-string-date-to-a-date-field-using-scripted-fields-in-kibana/108952/1 "2017-11-24T02:43:18Z")
Hi I am working on ELK stack. I have a date in the form of a `string` like below: `"23/Nov/2017:02:35:02 +0000"` Now I want to use scripted fields in `kibana` to convert the string date time to a `date` field. Anyone can help me with what to put in the script? or How can I go about it? ---
**Author:** ![ppisljar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ppisljar/32/11588_2.png) [@ppisljar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ppisljar)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 7:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-a-string-date-to-a-date-field-using-scripted-fields-in-kibana/108952/2 "2017-11-24T07:25:05Z")
I would really suggest against that if you have more than just a few records of data. You should reindex your data and make sure date time is stored correctly. Doing this with scripted fields will be painfully slow. Not 100% but i guess elastic will always have to go over every record and do conversion and then return the subset you are interested in. that being said, if you look at painless reference: [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/painless/master/painless-api-reference.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/painless/master/painless-api-reference.html) you can see it supports SimpleDateFormat looking at oracle documentation: [https://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html) something like this should work: ```auto new SimpleDateFormat('dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z').parse(doc['fieldname'].value); ``` ---
**Author:** ![iam.Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a9adbd/32.png) [@iam.Carrot](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/iam.Carrot)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 7:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-a-string-date-to-a-date-field-using-scripted-fields-in-kibana/108952/3 "2017-11-24T07:46:21Z")
@ppisljar When I use the code line I get the below error: `Error: Request to Elasticsearch failed: {"error":{"root_cause":[{"type":"script_exception","reason":"runtime error","script_stack":["org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.TextFieldMapper$TextFieldType.fielddataBuilder(TextFieldMapper.java:336)","org.elasticsearch.index.fielddata.IndexFieldDataService.getForField(IndexFieldDataService.java:111)","org.elasticsearch.search.lookup.LeafDocLookup$1.run(LeafDocLookup.java:84)","org.elasticsearch.search.lookup.LeafDocLookup$1.run(LeafDocLookup.java:81)","java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)","org.elasticsearch.search.lookup.LeafDocLookup.get(LeafDocLookup.java:81)","org.elasticsearch.search.lookup.LeafDocLookup.get(LeafDocLookup.java:36)","new SimpleDateFormat('dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z').parse(doc['timestamp'].value);"," ^---- HERE"],"script":"new SimpleDateFormat('dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z').parse(doc['timestamp'].value);","lang":"painless"}],"type":"search_phase_execution_exception","reason":"all shards failed","phase":"fetch","grouped":true,"failed_shards":[{"shard":0,"index":"logstash-20171123","node":"1Wv31tGWRwenm-3kYqPPBQ","reason":{"type":"script_exception","reason":"runtime error","script_stack":["org.elasticsearch.index.mapper.TextFieldMapper$TextFieldType.fielddataBuilder(TextFieldMapper.java:336)","org.elasticsearch.index.fielddata.IndexFieldDataService.getForField(IndexFieldDataService.java:111)","org.elasticsearch.search.lookup.LeafDocLookup$1.run(LeafDocLookup.java:84)","org.elasticsearch.search.lookup.LeafDocLookup$1.run(LeafDocLookup.java:81)","java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)","org.elasticsearch.search.lookup.LeafDocLookup.get(LeafDocLookup.java:81)","org.elasticsearch.search.lookup.LeafDocLookup.get(LeafDocLookup.java:36)","new SimpleDateFormat('dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z').parse(doc['timestamp'].value);"," ^---- HERE"],"script":"new SimpleDateFormat('dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z').parse(doc['timestamp'].value);","lang":"painless","caused_by":{"type":"illegal_argument_exception","reason":"Fielddata is disabled on text fields by default. Set fielddata=true on [timestamp] in order to load fielddata in memory by uninverting the inverted index. Note that this can however use significant memory. Alternatively use a keyword field instead."}}}]},"status":500} at http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/kibana.bundle.js?v=15443:28:6898 at Function.Promise.try (http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/commons.bundle.js?v=15443:82:22224) at http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/commons.bundle.js?v=15443:82:21594 at Array.map () at Function.Promise.map (http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/commons.bundle.js?v=15443:82:21549) at callResponseHandlers (http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/kibana.bundle.js?v=15443:28:6514) at http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/kibana.bundle.js?v=15443:27:26896 at processQueue (http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/commons.bundle.js?v=15443:38:23621) at http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/commons.bundle.js?v=15443:38:23888 at Scope.$eval (http://10.10.21.29:5601/bundles/commons.bundle.js?v=15443:39:4619)` The link to my config image is [https://1drv.ms/i/s!AsbwVCO9nR4ogvRDFJ87osiOZEzhDw](https://1drv.ms/i/s!AsbwVCO9nR4ogvRDFJ87osiOZEzhDw) ---
**Author:** ![ppisljar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ppisljar/32/11588_2.png) [@ppisljar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ppisljar)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 8:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-a-string-date-to-a-date-field-using-scripted-fields-in-kibana/108952/4 "2017-11-24T08:04:27Z")
well, of course, right now you are returning a java date, you need to convert that to unix epoch time (`getTime()`). also, you should not set the format of your date in scripted field, as that will convert it to string again (leave the format at `default`) ![screenshot-localhost-5601 2017-11-24 09-03-52-344](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/8/a/8ab14d89f3a6d49cb7665151d251168020fa06e9.png) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 8:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-a-string-date-to-a-date-field-using-scripted-fields-in-kibana/108952/5 "2017-12-22T08:04:52Z")
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