# Dealing with string date

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dealing-with-string-date/220789>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [February 25, 2020, 8:28am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dealing-with-string-date/220789 "2020-02-25T08:28:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![AdamJade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/cab0a1/32.png) [@AdamJade](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/AdamJade)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 8:28am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dealing-with-string-date/220789/1 "2020-02-25T08:28:38Z")

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Hi there  
I have an issue with this log line:  
[2020-02-19 09:42:01.514] [Value1] [value2] [value3] [Value5] [Value6] [Value7]  
grok {  
match =\> { "message" =\> "[%{TIMESTAMP\_ISO8601:logDate}] [%{DATA:core}] [%{WORD:serveur}] [%{WORD:Categorie}] [%{WORD:Type}] [%{WORD:entry}] [%{WORD:importance}] [%{DATA:Classe}]" }   
overwrite =\> ["message"]  
}  
date {  
match =\> ["logDate", "yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"]  
}  
The logDate is in String type but i want to use it as @timestamp in elasticsearch.  
How can'i get it work?  
Thnaks for any help.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ITIC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@ITIC](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ITIC)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 9:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dealing-with-string-date/220789/2 "2020-02-25T09:02:09Z")

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Hi

Your `date{}` pattern ("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.SSS") doesn't seem to match the content of `logDate` (2020-02-19 09:42:01.514), so your `date{}` filter is not working ([https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-filters-date.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-filters-date.html)).

Hope this helps.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AdamJade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/cab0a1/32.png) [@AdamJade](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/AdamJade)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 10:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dealing-with-string-date/220789/3 "2020-02-25T10:06:50Z")

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I update the date filter and i still have logDate as a string in elasticsearch.

match =\> ["logDate", "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS"]

Thanks for the help

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ITIC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@ITIC](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ITIC)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 10:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dealing-with-string-date/220789/4 "2020-02-25T10:22:54Z")

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Hi

As you have seen in the documentation I linked, the default target for the `date{}` filter is `@timestamp`. You should add `target => "logDate"` to your `date{}` filter to change the default.

Hope this helps.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AdamJade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/cab0a1/32.png) [@AdamJade](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/AdamJade)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 8:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dealing-with-string-date/220789/5 "2020-02-26T08:24:20Z")

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Great!!! many thank's it works as expected

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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 25, 2020, 8:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/dealing-with-string-date/220789/6 "2020-03-25T08:24:30Z")

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