# Curator date match does not meet provided criteria
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-date-match-does-not-meet-provided-criteria/262300
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Tags:** curator
**Created:** [January 27, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-date-match-does-not-meet-provided-criteria/262300 "2021-01-27T00:55:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@kyle\_che](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kyle_che)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-date-match-does-not-meet-provided-criteria/262300/1 "2021-01-27T00:55:51Z")
I'm trying to run curator and getting "does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list." Any idea on why the pattern below is not matching the index name?
```auto
3:
action: delete_indices
description: >-
Delete stats-v2-events-session-new indices older than 5 days (based on index name), for logstash-
prefixed indices. Ignore the error if the filter does not result in an
actionable list of indices (ignore_empty_list) and exit cleanly.
options:
ignore_empty_list: True
timeout_override:
continue_if_exception: False
disable_action: False
filters:
- filtertype: pattern
kind: prefix
value: 'stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-'
exclude:
- filtertype: age
source: name
direction: older
timestring: '%d.%m.%Y '
unit: days
unit_count: 3
exclude:
```
```auto
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:490 Filtering indices by age
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.indexlist _get_name_based_ages:280 Getting ages of indices by "name"
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.indexlist empty_list_check:226 Checking for empty list
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:195 Provided timestring = "%d.%m.%Y "
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: % Array position: 0
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: d Array position: 1
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: . Array position: 2
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: % Array position: 3
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: m Array position: 4
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: . Array position: 5
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: % Array position: 6
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: Y Array position: 7
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:197 Current character: Array position: 8
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.utils get_date_regex:207 regex = \d{2}\.\d{2}\.\d{4}
2021-01-27 00:51:19,427 DEBUG curator.indexlist working_list:237 Generating working list of indices
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist working_list:237 Generating working list of indices
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:550 Index "stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-23.1.2021" does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list.
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:550 Index "stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-22.1.2021" does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list.
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:550 Index "stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-21.1.2021" does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list.
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:550 Index "stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-25.1.2021" does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list.
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:550 Index "stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-19.1.2021" does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list.
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:550 Index "stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-27.1.2021" does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list.
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:550 Index "stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-20.1.2021" does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list.
2021-01-27 00:51:19,428 DEBUG curator.indexlist filter_by_age:550 Index "stats-v2-events-session-new-vhb-26.1.2021" does not meet provided criteria. Removing from list.
```
---
### Author:  [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-date-match-does-not-meet-provided-criteria/262300/2 "2021-01-27T21:42:29Z")
Please see the warning, [A word about regular expression matching with timestrings](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/client/curator/5.8/filtertype_age.html#_name_based_ages)
> [@kyle\_che](#):
>
> `timestring: '%d.%m.%Y '`
> [@kyle\_che](#):
>
> `19.1.2021`
Your month is not zero padded, and I would expect that single-digit days to also not be zero padded. This will result in the date not being recognized.
Unless the data inside does not correspond with the index creation date, I recommend using `creation_date` as your age filter `source`, rather than `name`. It removes this ambiguity by using the actual date stamp when the index was created. If you must use `name`, you'll have to fix your index naming algorithm to provide zero-padded days and months.
---
### Author:  [@kyle\_che](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kyle_che)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2021, 12:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-date-match-does-not-meet-provided-criteria/262300/3 "2021-01-28T00:09:05Z")
> [@theuntergeek](#):
>
> creation\_date
thank you, that worked.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2021, 12:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/curator-date-match-does-not-meet-provided-criteria/262300/4 "2021-02-25T00:09:11Z")
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