# Externally-provided timestamp being overridden
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/externally-provided-timestamp-being-overridden/16834
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [April 6, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/externally-provided-timestamp-being-overridden/16834 "2014-04-06T17:18:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Michael\_Sokolov](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Michael_Sokolov)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/externally-provided-timestamp-being-overridden/16834/1 "2014-04-06T17:18:55Z")
I need to be able to provide timestamps that will be preserved by ES. I'm
using the \_timestamp field (although perhaps I shouldn't, because) it seems
that the values I provide are being ignored, and the current date-time is
being inserted instead. My mapping configuration looks like this:
dynamic: strict
\_source:
enabled: false
\_all:
enabled: false
\_timestamp:
type: date
enabled: true
index: not\_analyzed
store: true
properties:
...
I've tried providing the times as longs, as longs converted to strings, as
ISO-formatted date-times (YYYYMMDDThhmmss.SSS), but nothing seems to have
any effect -- I might as well provide 0.
I'm inserting documents using the Java client API by creating a Map, with
key="\_timestamp" and values as described above.
Has anybody run across this before? It seems like a very standard use case
if you want to keep a consistent timestamp across a cluster, or in any way
copy documents without updating their timestamps.
-Mike
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/bc9de57c-e20d-45bc-8fb1-4537177e277b%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/bc9de57c-e20d-45bc-8fb1-4537177e277b%40googlegroups.com).
For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout).
---
### Author:  [@Michael\_Sokolov](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Michael_Sokolov)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/externally-provided-timestamp-being-overridden/16834/2 "2014-04-06T17:27:17Z")
quick follow-up -- of course using my own long-valued field seems to work
just fine, but I would still like to understand what's going on here. It
might be nice to have the internally-generated behavior as a fallback?
On Sunday, April 6, 2014 1:18:55 PM UTC-4, Michael Sokolov wrote:
> I need to be able to provide timestamps that will be preserved by ES. I'm
> using the \_timestamp field (although perhaps I shouldn't, because) it seems
> that the values I provide are being ignored, and the current date-time is
> being inserted instead. My mapping configuration looks like this:
>
> dynamic: strict
>
> \_source:
> enabled: false
>
> \_all:
> enabled: false
>
> \_timestamp:
> type: date
> enabled: true
> index: not\_analyzed
> store: true
>
> properties:
> ...
>
> I've tried providing the times as longs, as longs converted to strings, as
> ISO-formatted date-times (YYYYMMDDThhmmss.SSS), but nothing seems to have
> any effect -- I might as well provide 0.
>
> I'm inserting documents using the Java client API by creating a Map, with
> key="\_timestamp" and values as described above.
>
> Has anybody run across this before? It seems like a very standard use
> case if you want to keep a consistent timestamp across a cluster, or in any
> way copy documents without updating their timestamps.
>
> -Mike
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/b948a29d-92af-45c4-9491-97e9b6495615%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/b948a29d-92af-45c4-9491-97e9b6495615%40googlegroups.com).
For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout).
---
### Author:  [@Binh\_Ly\_2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Binh_Ly_2)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2014, 2:16pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/externally-provided-timestamp-being-overridden/16834/3 "2014-04-09T14:16:28Z")
From the Java API, you should be able to do something like:
client.prepareIndex().setTimestamp(blah)
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com).
To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/646894ff-6581-43d9-a890-e701b4f29b86%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/646894ff-6581-43d9-a890-e701b4f29b86%40googlegroups.com).
For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/d/optout](https://groups.google.com/d/optout).
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/externally-provided-timestamp-being-overridden/16834/4 "2017-07-06T01:37:16Z")