# Truncating results in watcher action
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/truncating-results-in-watcher-action/73908
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Tags:** elastic-stack-alerting
**Created:** [February 3, 2017, 8:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/truncating-results-in-watcher-action/73908 "2017-02-03T20:41:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@andrey81inmd](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/andrey81inmd)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2017, 8:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/truncating-results-in-watcher-action/73908/1 "2017-02-03T20:41:44Z")
Hello,
I have a query that returns really long strings sometimes. I want to truncate the string to a max length of let's say 200 characters. I'm calling a webhook that has a parameter like this:
"message" : "{{#ctx.payload.hits.hits}}{{\_source.text}} - {{\_source.exception\_message}}
{{/ctx.payload.hits.hits}}"
Is there any easy way to truncate \_source.text and \_source.exception\_message fields when generating this parameter?
Thanks,
Andrey
---
### Author:  [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2017, 9:39pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/truncating-results-in-watcher-action/73908/2 "2017-02-03T21:39:50Z")
Hey Andrey,
mustache itself has no means of truncating, but you can use a script transform in your action to achieve this, see this example
```auto
POST _xpack/watcher/watch/_execute
{
"watch" : {
"trigger" : { "schedule" : { "interval" : "10s" } },
"input" : {
"simple" : {
"data" : [
{"a": "short"}, {"a" : "loooooooooongloooooooooongloooooooooongloooooooooongloooooooooongloooooooooongloooooooooongloooooooooongloooooooooongloooooooooong"}
]
}
},
"actions" : {
"log_error" : {
"transform" : {
"script" : {
"inline" : "ctx.payload.data.collect(e -> e.a.substring(0, (int) Math.min(e.a.length(), 10)))"
}
},
"logging" : {
"text" : "Found {{ctx.payload.hits.total}} errors in the logs"
}
}
}
}
}
```
--Alex
---
### Author:  [@andrey81inmd](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/andrey81inmd)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/truncating-results-in-watcher-action/73908/3 "2017-02-03T22:14:51Z")
Alex,
That looks great, but doesn't seem to work in my version.. it's returning this error:
```
"type": "script_exception",
"reason": "failed to compile script [ScriptException[Failed to compile inline script [ctx.payload.data.collect(e -> e.text.substring(0, (int) Math.min(e.text.length(), 300)))] using lang [groovy]]; nested: ScriptException[failed to compile groovy script]; nested: MultipleCompilationErrorsException[startup failed:\n39b79deb278b37ddf0f53ca43268d9df949f9b2a: 1: unexpected token: -> @ line 1, column 28.\n ctx.payload.data.collect(e -> e.text.substring(0, (int) Math.min(e.text.length(), 300)))\n ^\n\n1 error\n];] with lang [ctx.payload.data.collect(e -> e.text.substring(0, (int) Math.min(e.text.length(), 300)))] of type [groovy]"
```
We haven't upgraded to 5 yet. Is there a way to do this with the previous version?
Thanks,
Andrey
---
### Author:  [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/truncating-results-in-watcher-action/73908/4 "2017-02-03T22:31:24Z")
Hey,
do'h, my bad. I was thinking in terms of Elasticsearch 5 using the new and fresh scripting language. You can do something similar in groovy, along the lines
```auto
x.data.collect { x -> x.a.substring(0, Math.min(x.a.length(), 10)) }
```
not tested this time and top of my more and more rusty groovy skills.
--Alex
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/truncating-results-in-watcher-action/73908/5 "2017-03-03T22:31:56Z")
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