# Converting Duration Field From Text To Number

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-duration-field-from-text-to-number/265255>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [February 23, 2021, 9:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-duration-field-from-text-to-number/265255 "2021-02-23T21:20:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/43a26b/32.png) [@wwalker](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/wwalker)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 9:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-duration-field-from-text-to-number/265255/1 "2021-02-23T21:20:15Z")

</div>

I have a field that displays connection duration as a string that looks like `3h:49m:57s`. Any ideas on how to convert this to an aggregateable format such as epoch time or something?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Badger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/badger/32/25190_2.png) [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-duration-field-from-text-to-number/265255/2 "2021-02-23T21:39:56Z")

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If you want to convert that to seconds you could do something like this (not tested):

```
grok { match => { "someField" => "%{INT:[@metadata][h]}h:%{INT:[@metadata][m]}:%{INT:[@metadata][s]}s" } }
ruby { code => 'event.set("duration", event.get("[@metadata][h]").to_i*3600 + event.get("[@metadata][m]").to_i*60 + event.get("[@metadata][s]"))' }
```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/43a26b/32.png) [@wwalker](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/wwalker)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 10:30pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-duration-field-from-text-to-number/265255/3 "2021-02-23T22:30:34Z")

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Oh wow, that's more than I expected! I should really learn Ruby better, I never think about it much. Unfortunately, after adapting it to the correct fields, I get an error `Ruby exception occurred: String can't be coerced into Integer`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/43a26b/32.png) [@wwalker](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/wwalker)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 10:35pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-duration-field-from-text-to-number/265255/4 "2021-02-23T22:35:49Z")

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Got it...had to convert the seconds field to an integer.

```auto
ruby {
  code => 'event.set("session_duration", event.get("[@metadata][h]").to_i*3600 + event.get("[@metadata][m]").to_i*60 + event.get("[@metadata][s]").to_i)'
}

```

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<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:** [March 23, 2021, 10:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/converting-duration-field-from-text-to-number/265255/5 "2021-03-23T22:36:45Z")

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