# Problem with conditional in output definition

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/problem-with-conditional-in-output-definition/74302>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [February 7, 2017, 11:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/problem-with-conditional-in-output-definition/74302 "2017-02-07T23:47:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<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:** [February 8, 2017, 11:05am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/problem-with-conditional-in-output-definition/74302/2 "2017-02-08T11:05:42Z")

</div>

You can't have conditionals inside the plugin definitions. Do this instead:

```nohighlight
if [type] == "metricsets" {
  elasticsearch {
    hosts => "localhost"
    index => "metricbeat-%{+YYYY.MM.dd}"
  }
} else {
  elasticsearch {
    hosts => "localhost"
    index => "logstash-%{+YYYY.MM.dd}"
  }
}

```

---

_[View the full topic](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/problem-with-conditional-in-output-definition/74302)._