Finds a timestamp in the given field and parses it, trying different formats for timestamps. The function returns the first timestamp in the field that matches one of its formats. The function only finds timestamps starting within the first 128 characters of the text.

Self-hosted customers can adjust this behaviour setting the variable MAX_CHARS_TO_FIND_TIMESTAMP.

ParameterTypeRequiredDefault ValueDescription
addErrorsbooleanoptional[a]true Whether to add an error field to the event, if it was not possible to find a timestamp.
asstringoptional[a]@timestamp The output field that will contain the parsed timestamp. The timestamp is represented as milliseconds since Unix epoch (01-01-1970 00:00:00 UTC). LogScale expects to find the timestamp for the event in the field @timestamp , so do not set this parameter to anything else in a parser.
fieldstringoptional[a]@rawstring The field to search for a timestamp.
timezonestringoptional[a]  If the timestamp does not contain a timezone and this parameter is not set, then the timestamp will not be parsed. The timezone can be specified as a named timezone or as an offset. Examples are Europe/London, America/New_York, UTC or UTC+12:30. See the full list of timezones supported by LogScale at Supported Timezones.
timezoneAsstringoptional[a]@timezone The output field that will contain the parsed timezone. LogScale expects to find the timezone for the event in the field @timezone , so do not set this parameter to anything else in a parser.

[a] Optional parameters use their default value unless explicitly set.

This function is primarily meant to be used in generic parsers that can be used for different event types. If the format of the timestamp is known, consider using the parseTimestamp() function instead.

The function supports the following formats:

  • year month day hour minute second [subsecond] [timezone]

  • month day [year] hour minute second [subsecond] [timezone]

  • month day hour minute second [subsecond] [timezone] year4

  • day monthLetter [year4] hour minute second [subsecond] [timezone]

  • hour minute second [subsecond] [timezone]

  • epochsecond [subsecond]

Values within brackets (for example, [timezone]) are optional.

The different formats are described as follows:

Type Description
year The year with either two or four digits.
year4 The year with four digits.
month The month as two digits or three letters (for example, 01 or Jan).
monthLetter The month as three letters (for example, Jan)
day The day as two digits.
hour The hour as two digits (0-23 or 1-12).
minute The minutes as two digits.
second The seconds as two digits.
subsecond The sub-seconds as one to nine digits, for Unix epoch time only 3, 6 or 9 digits.
timezone The timezone as either a named timezone (for example, UTC or America/New_York) or an offset (for example, UTC+12:30).
epochsecond The seconds since Unix epoch (01-01-1970 00:00:00 UTC) as 10 digits.

Additional notes:

  • If the timezone is missing, the timezone parameter is used.

    Note

    If timestamps are written in a timezone with Daylight Saving Time, it is recommended that the timezone parameter is specified and written as an offset. Otherwise, when switching from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time, there is no way to differentiate between the last hour before the switch and the first hour after.

  • If the date (year, month and day) is missing, the current date is used if the time is at most 10 minutes into the future; otherwise, the previous days date is used.

  • If the year is missing, the largest of last year, this year and next year is used so that the date is at most 7 days into the future.

  • If the year is only two digits, it is assumed to be between 2013 and 2099. If you need to parse dates before 2013 with only two digits for year, use the parseTimestamp() function instead.

  • Leap seconds are ignored, so 60 seconds is converted to 59 seconds.

  • Up to 9 digits of subseconds are accepted, but since timestamps are stored with millisecond precision, only the first 3 digits are used.

  • If a timestamp is found, two fields are added to the event: one contains the parsed timestamp in milliseconds since Unix epoch (01-01-1970 00:00:00 UTC) and gets its name from the as parameter; the other contains the parsed timezone, if available, and otherwise the timezone parameter, and gets its name from the timezoneAs parameter.

In a parser with UTC set as the timezone.

logscale
findTimestamp(timezone="UTC")

In a parser with America/New_York set as the timezone.

logscale
findTimestamp(timezone="America/New_York")

In a parser where the timestamp is located in a field named date.

logscale
findTimestamp(field=date, timezone="Europe/London")

In a query function where the timestamp should be stored in a field datetime and the timezone in a field tz.

logscale
findTimestamp(as="datetime", timezoneAs="tz")