# Output date in epoch\_millis format
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/output-date-in-epoch-millis-format/105022
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [October 24, 2017, 9:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/output-date-in-epoch-millis-format/105022 "2017-10-24T09:06:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jong99](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jong99)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2017, 9:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/output-date-in-epoch-millis-format/105022/1 "2017-10-24T09:06:27Z")
I'm trying to use Logstash to replace a custom, overly complex system that I've inherited.
It currently outputs the timestamp of the event into a field called "@ts", but this is stored in _epoch\_millis_ format. I'm trying to get Logstash to output the timestamp in this date format.
Here is the relevant field from the mapping:
`"@ts": {"format": "epoch_millis", "type": "date"}`
And the raw JSON documents when I retrieve them look like this:
`"fields": {"@ts": [1508832196000]}`
No matter what I do, I cannot seem to get Logstash to output the date format in _epoch\_millis_ format, and all the documents are discarded when written to that index. If I try to write to a different index with a mapping of _strict\_date\_optional\_time_ then all works perfectly, but the documents are stored in the standard format e.g. "2017-10-24T08:26:09.000Z"
Is there any way to get logstash to output a date in `epoch_millis` format for compatibility?
I've tried [https://github.com/wiibaa/logstash-filter-date\_formatter](https://github.com/wiibaa/logstash-filter-date_formatter) but Joda Time doesn't seem to support Unix timestamps.
Any pointers here? Thanks!
**Edit:**
I've tried using Ruby to set @timestamp to this, but that results in an error:
`event.set('@timestamp',event.get('@ts').to_i)`
`Ruby exception occurred: wrong argument type Fixnum (expected LogStash::Timestamp)`
But it looks like I can set @ts to to this
`event.set('@ts',event.get('@ts').to_i)`
Guessing @timestamp here is a reserved name and can't be overridden.
Still doesn't solve the problem though as something is casting the integer timestamp to a date somewhere.
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### Author:  [@jong99](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jong99)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2017, 10:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/output-date-in-epoch-millis-format/105022/2 "2017-10-24T10:24:27Z")
Think I'm getting confused here now with @ts and @timestamp, and a combination of issues (notably overwriting the type of @timestamp). I now have @ts stored as an integer using the Ruby code above. Maybe there is a better way to do it?
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2017, 10:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/output-date-in-epoch-millis-format/105022/3 "2017-11-21T10:24:36Z")
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