# Remove keys and avoid "Direct event field references have been disabled" error message
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [April 20, 2018, 10:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853 "2018-04-20T10:22:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@juan.domenech](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/juan.domenech)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2018, 10:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853/1 "2018-04-20T10:22:33Z")
Hi,
I need to remove a nasty field with keys and after reading this forum I've decided to use this:
```
ruby { code => "event.get('[field_with_keys]').keys.each { |k| event['field_with_keys'].remove(k) }" }
mutate { remove_field => ["field_with_keys"] }
```
It works fine but now I'm getting this error in the logs:
`[2018-04-20T07:10:23,876][ERROR][logstash.filters.ruby] Ruby exception occurred: Direct event field references (i.e. event['field']) have been disabled in favor of using event get and set methods (e.g. event.get('field')). Please consult the Logstash 5.0 breaking changes documentation for more details.`
It is not big deal but... Is there any way to rewrite `event['field_with_keys'].remove(k)` to be 5.0 compliant?
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2018, 10:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853/2 "2018-04-20T10:25:14Z")
`event.get('field_with_keys').remove(k)`?
---
### Author:  [@juan.domenech](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/juan.domenech)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2018, 10:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853/3 "2018-04-20T10:38:07Z")
I bet you are right Magnus.
Deploying and testing...
---
### Author:  [@juan.domenech](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/juan.domenech)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2018, 10:48am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853/4 "2018-04-20T10:48:45Z")
No joy. I get this error:
`2018-04-20T10:44:02,519][ERROR][logstash.filters.ruby] Ruby exception occurred: undefined method`remove' for {"76561198447918001"=\>0}:Hash`
BTW I'm using logstash-5.6.4
---
### Author:  [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2018, 11:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853/5 "2018-04-20T11:19:43Z")
No, right, it's `delete` and not `remove`.
---
### Author:  [@juan.domenech](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/juan.domenech)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2018, 12:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853/6 "2018-04-20T12:05:28Z")
😅 Testing...
---
### Author:  [@juan.domenech](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/juan.domenech)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2018, 1:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853/7 "2018-04-20T13:06:33Z")
It works.
```
ruby { code => "event.get('[field_with_keys]').keys.each { |k| event.get('field_with_keys').delete(k) }" }
mutate { remove_field => ["field_with_keys"] }
```
Thanks a mil!
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2018, 1:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/remove-keys-and-avoid-direct-event-field-references-have-been-disabled-error-message/128853/8 "2018-05-18T13:06:33Z")
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