# Numeric value being detected as long instead of intended string
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/numeric-value-being-detected-as-long-instead-of-intended-string/55430
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [July 13, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/numeric-value-being-detected-as-long-instead-of-intended-string/55430 "2016-07-13T17:00:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@hartfordfive](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hartfordfive)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/numeric-value-being-detected-as-long-instead-of-intended-string/55430/1 "2016-07-13T17:00:08Z")
I seem to be having an odd issue with my data typing in Elasticsearch, I have a "timestamp" field (not "@timestamp") in one type (apachecombined-access) that is being set as "string" and in another type (rds-logs) as a "long". The problem is that I can't see anything in my index template that would cause this to happen and I don't have automatic numeric detection enabled.
You can view my index template here: [http://pastebin.com/wHQdmxjP](http://pastebin.com/wHQdmxjP)
Sample \_source of an "apachecombined-access" type item: [http://pastebin.com/BfkG5Lx0](http://pastebin.com/BfkG5Lx0)
Sample \_source of an "rds" type item: [http://pastebin.com/qe2TxHBB](http://pastebin.com/qe2TxHBB)
Does anyone see what could be causing my issue? I appreciate any help!
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### Author:  [@johtani](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/johtani)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2016, 2:12am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/numeric-value-being-detected-as-long-instead-of-intended-string/55430/2 "2016-07-14T02:12:36Z")
Hi,
Your "rds" type item has the number type in your JSON that means without `"`.
It is not related numeric detection.
See this document.
[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/2.x/mapping-intro.html#core-fields](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/2.x/mapping-intro.html#core-fields)
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### Author:  [@hartfordfive](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hartfordfive)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2016, 1:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/numeric-value-being-detected-as-long-instead-of-intended-string/55430/3 "2016-07-15T13:18:43Z")
Thank you for the reply @johtani. Regardless of the JSON type of the data i was inserting, I wanted to ensure that anything non-object value that wasn't explicitly suffixed with a type (as per my index template), would automatically get typed as a **string**.
It seems like I've been able to solve my problem by doing a few slight modifications to the index templates. I went from [this 1st version template](http://pastebin.com/imZyq2P3) to [this 2nd version template](http://pastebin.com/P5MFTkfz).
I suspect the `"nested_items_template"` section in the 1st version was allowing ES to automatically convert `"timestamp": 1234567890` to a long as it's JSON type was a number (as you pointed out) and I was also using the {dynamic\_type} value for **type**. I updated that section in the 2nd version template to only automatically detect **object** types and statically set them to "object". It seems like new values that don't match my indicated types (with \_TYPE) or the object type, now match on last `"string_fields"` section, thus properly setting it as a string. I'm not an expert when it comes to index templates although I would appreciate it if you can in fact confirm this is what's occurring?
Thanks again.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 10:35pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/numeric-value-being-detected-as-long-instead-of-intended-string/55430/4 "2017-07-05T22:35:08Z")