Date Dynamic Mapping

[AsfK]

Hello!

I using ES High rest api to upload json as document, no template is provide.
I want to make an index pattern by date, therefore I added a 'time' field contains time in various formats but it recognized as string in the index pattern window.

I tried some formats:

• 04-06-2020 12:21:42
• 04-06-2020T12:21:42
• 04-06-2020T12:21:42Z
• 04062020T122143Z
• Epoch nanoseconds

I also tried to add "Scaled date format" in the advanced settings: ["P1TDF", "YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss"]:

(not really understand the first key, just add format with full time, ss; UPDATE: I also added MM-DD-YYYY HH:mm:ss).

but 'time' field still recognized as string:

(I also haven't date option in the edit page).

How can I recognize this json field as date in dynamic mapping?

Thank you!

P.S. ES 7.6.2

[dadoonet (David Pilato)]

The best practice is to define the mapping before indexing the first document so you force the field as a date.

Why not doing that?

[AsfK]

Thank you very much, I thought it's not needed and ES know to recognized date as string...

(Avoid templates to not define the mapping in new environments...)

[dadoonet (David Pilato)]

It can. But I do see that as a bad practice. In my former job, I had a field in which users can enter whatever reference they want to use.
The first user in my app, entered "2012-01-01". The second one entered "foo".
The problem is that the first one was looking like a date so Elasticsearch set to this field the date data type. Obviously the second document was rejected as "foo" can't be a date.

That's why I recommend using explicit mapping.