# How to do an exclude pattern on a blank value **URL:** \ **Category:** Kibana\ **Created:** [October 27, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-do-an-exclude-pattern-on-a-blank-value/33097 "2015-10-27T18:25:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ILikeToNguyen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ea5d25/32.png) [@ILikeToNguyen](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ILikeToNguyen)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-do-an-exclude-pattern-on-a-blank-value/33097/1 "2015-10-27T18:25:50Z")
I have graphs where some values are set to "". In other words, it is a blank string. I cannot figure out how to do an exclude pattern so that these blank values don't show up in the graphs. I can successfully exclude null, but I've tried "" and just leaving it blank and it doesn't remove the empty string value from the visualization. ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/2X/e/e25f5192c4595f6da4b3c692c5ca0e4cc0cc0cf0.png) ---
**Author:** ![Pieter\_Agenbag](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pieter_agenbag/32/4562_2.png) [@Pieter\_Agenbag](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Pieter_Agenbag)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 12:30pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-do-an-exclude-pattern-on-a-blank-value/33097/2 "2015-10-29T12:30:03Z")
Just add | to your exclude pattern. Patterns are separated with a | and thus adding one will let kibana know there is a "blank" before the separator. Dont know if its the right way to do it ,but thats how I got around it 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ILikeToNguyen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ea5d25/32.png) [@ILikeToNguyen](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ILikeToNguyen)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2015, 10:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-do-an-exclude-pattern-on-a-blank-value/33097/3 "2015-11-03T22:37:03Z")
Perfect! Thanks for that clever "workaround"! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 2:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-do-an-exclude-pattern-on-a-blank-value/33097/4 "2017-07-06T14:10:04Z")