# Is it possible to set variables in file path?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-set-variables-in-file-path/54682>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [July 5, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-set-variables-in-file-path/54682 "2016-07-05T02:51:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Morriaty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Morriaty](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Morriaty)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-set-variables-in-file-path/54682/1 "2016-07-05T02:51:24Z")

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I have a directory contains too many logs which were named as log-YYYYMMDD ranging from 5 years ago to now.

I do not want Logstash to parse the old logs. So I need something like this

```python
input {
  file {
    param => { "today" => "datetime.now()" }
    path => "/path/to/log-{%today}"
  }
}

```

Or any other ideas to solve this problem?  
Thank you for your help.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![magnusbaeck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/magnusbaeck/32/44943_2.png) [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2016, 6:13am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-set-variables-in-file-path/54682/2 "2016-07-05T06:13:36Z")

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Use the file input's `ignore_older` option to ignore old files.

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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:** [July 6, 2017, 4:49am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-set-variables-in-file-path/54682/3 "2017-07-06T04:49:35Z")

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