# Coping with ES' Use of org.joda.time.MutableDateTime **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [October 17, 2018, 1:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/coping-with-es-use-of-org-joda-time-mutabledatetime/152733 "2018-10-17T01:37:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SpaceMoose](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spacemoose/32/35972_2.png) [@SpaceMoose](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/SpaceMoose)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 1:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/coping-with-es-use-of-org-joda-time-mutabledatetime/152733/1 "2018-10-17T01:37:46Z")
Hello... I'm still struggling with date arithmetic in the ES stack. I tried something that should have been trivial, coding along with an example presented at this url: [https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1179670/Using-Painless-Scripting-to-calculate-dates-and-pr](https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1179670/Using-Painless-Scripting-to-calculate-dates-and-pr) I decided to try this out in Kibana's DevTools tab. Following through the example, I was able to create an index and fill it, just as in the code blocks in the blog post show. I can execute the first, trivial GET request successfully. But I have encountered a couple of issues: 1. I cannot see this index on the Kibana 'Discover' tab when I look for it (but that's a separate issue); and 2. Significantly, I encounter an error when I try to execute the second GET request, encountering an error "Cannot apply [-] to types [org.joda.time.MutableDateTime] and [org.joda.MutableDateTime]." Here is the second GET query, pasted in from the url cited above is: ```auto GET logs/userlog/_search { "size": 0, "aggs": { "groupby": { "range": { "script": { "inline": "((doc['CLOSED DATE'].value - doc['START DATE'].value) / (3600000.0/60))" }, "ranges": [ { "from": 0.0, "to": 30.0, "key": "From 0 to 30 minutes" }, { "from": 30.0, "to": 60.0, "key": "From 30 to 60 minutes" }, { "from": 60.0, "key": "Greater than 1 hour" } ] } } } } ``` I'm using Kibana 6.4.1 and Elasticsearch 6.4.1. Clearly something has changed since Elastic 5.x that now sets dates to this rather unfriendly org.joda.time.MutableDateTime format. How do I change my bulk ingest to get something that will allow me to date arithmetic? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![SpaceMoose](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spacemoose/32/35972_2.png) [@SpaceMoose](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/SpaceMoose)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 1:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/coping-with-es-use-of-org-joda-time-mutabledatetime/152733/2 "2018-10-17T01:52:05Z")
OK. I have now solved the time problem by invoking getMillis() on the date objects. And I also fixed a "deprecated" warning regarding using "inline" rather than "source". Corrected query pasted below: ```auto GET logs/userlog/_search { "size": 0, "aggs": { "groupby": { "range": { "script": { "source": "((doc['CLOSED DATE'].value.getMillis() - doc['START DATE'].value.getMillis()) / 3600000.0)" }, "ranges": [ { "from": 0.0, "to": 2.0, "key": "From 0 to 2 hours" }, { "from": 2.0, "to": 24.0, "key": "From 2 to 24 hours" }, { "from": 24.0, "key": "Greater than 1 day" } ] } } } } ``` So, other than the fact that I can't see my index in Kibana's "Discover" tab, I'm good...I'd appreciate any advice on this second matter. Or, on how to avoid this default representation using org.joda.time.MutableDateTime. Thanks again! ---
**Author:** ![spinscale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spinscale/32/25011_2.png) [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 7:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/coping-with-es-use-of-org-joda-time-mutabledatetime/152733/3 "2018-10-17T07:09:14Z")
Glad you figured it out! Just a side note: This script needs to be executed for **every** hit in your query, which in the above examples means all documents in your index. This would be a use-case for using an ingest processor, that uses a script to calculate the duration when indexing and store it in an additional field. This will speed up your queries tremendously! ---
**Author:** ![SpaceMoose](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spacemoose/32/35972_2.png) [@SpaceMoose](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/SpaceMoose)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 11:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/coping-with-es-use-of-org-joda-time-mutabledatetime/152733/4 "2018-10-17T23:28:22Z")
@spinscale--Thanks for the tip. I am aware that what I currently have is search-intensive. Another question I have is: is there some equivalent of a cron job that I could run periodically--say daily and presumably outside of peak hours--to update my time\_to\_closure statistic for an existing index? Also, while we're on the topic of time processing, do you have any advice regarding another of my recent posts? [[Scanning Window Search through Index?](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/scanning-window-search-through-index/152163)]([Scanning Window Search through Index?](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/scanning-window-search-through-index/152163) I'm still struggling with figuring out how to sweep through an index in time with a time coordinate--let's just call it t--whose value I control (say by updating in a loop) and comparing various time field values with t to determine things like what tickets are open at a given moment, and how long have they been open. Thanks and all the best... ---
**Author:** ![spinscale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spinscale/32/25011_2.png) [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 7:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/coping-with-es-use-of-org-joda-time-mutabledatetime/152733/5 "2018-10-18T07:27:12Z")
Hey, right now there is no equivalent of a cronjob. I think what you need to do is to run a [update by query](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/6.4/docs-update-by-query.html) job, that searches for recently closed issues and use a script to calculate the difference. Again, you could potentially do this, when you update the closing time to save a roundtrip and have the data added immediately instead of a cron job (given your setup around Elasticsearch allows for this). Hope this helps! --Alex ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2018, 7:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/coping-with-es-use-of-org-joda-time-mutabledatetime/152733/6 "2018-11-15T07:27:14Z")
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