Usage

The now() function is often used with other data and time functions.

The time returned by the now() function is represented in UNIX time, or in seconds since Epoch time.

When used in a search, this function returns the UNIX time when the search is run. If you want to return the UNIX time when each result is returned, use the time() function instead.

You can use this function with the eval and where commands, in the WHERE clause of the from command, and as part of evaluation expressions with other commands.

Basic example

The following example determines the UNIX time value of the start of yesterday, based on the value of now().

... | eval n=relative_time(now(), "-1d@d")

Extended example

If you are looking for events that occurred within the last 30 minutes you need to calculate the event hour, event minute, the current hour, and the current minute. You use the now() function to calculate the current hour (curHour) and current minute (curMin). The event timestamp, in the _time field, is used to calculate the event hour (eventHour) and event minute (eventMin). For example:

... earliest=-30d 
 | eval eventHour=strftime(_time,"%H") 
 | eval eventMin=strftime(_time,"%M")
 | eval curHour=strftime(now(),"%H") 
 | eval curMin=strftime(now(),"%M")
 | where (eventHour=curHour and eventMin > curMin - 30) or 
   (curMin < 30 and eventHour=curHour-1 and eventMin>curMin+30)
 | bin _time span=1d
 | timechart count() by _time

Usage

You can use this function with the eval and where commands, in the WHERE clause of the from command, and as part of evaluation expressions with other commands.

Basic examples

The following example determines the UNIX time value of the start of yesterday, based on the value of now().

... | eval n=relative_time(now(), "-1d@d")

The following example specifies an earliest time of 2 hours ago snapped to the hour and a latest time of 1 hour ago snapped to the hour:

... | where _time>relative_time(now(), "-2h@h") AND _time<relative_time(now(), "-1h@h")

Usage

You can use this function with the eval and where commands, in the WHERE clause of the from command, and as part of evaluation expressions with other commands.

Converting time into seconds

If the time is in milliseconds, microseconds, or nanoseconds you must convert the time into seconds. You can use the pow function to convert the number.

• To convert from milliseconds to seconds, divide the number by 1000 or 10^3.
• To convert from microseconds to seconds, divide the number by 10^6.
• To convert from nanoseconds to seconds, divide the number by 10^9.

The following search uses the pow function to convert from nanoseconds to seconds:

| from [{ }] 
| eval StartTimestamp="1566554581000"
| eval starttime=strftime(StartTimestamp/pow(10,9),"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%Q")

The results look like this:

In these results the _time value is the date and time when the search was run.

Basic example

The following example returns the hour and minute from the _time field.

...| eval hour_min=strftime(_time, "%H:%M")

If the _time field value is 2022-08-10 11:48:23, the value returned in the hour_min field is 11:48.

Extended example

The following example creates a single result using the from command.

| from [{ }]

For example:

The _time field is stored in UNIX time, even though it displays in a human readable format. To convert the UNIX time to some other format, you use the strftime function with the date and time format variables. The variables must be in quotations marks.

For example, to return the week of the year that an event occurred in, use the %V variable.

| from [{ }] 
| eval week=strftime(_time,"%V")

The results are show the value 34 for week.

To return the date and time with subseconds and the time designator (the letter T) that precedes the time components of the format, use the %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%Q variables. For example:

| from [{ }] 
| eval mytime=strftime(_time,"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%Q")

The results are:

Usage

You can use this function with the eval and where commands, in the WHERE clause of the from command, and as part of evaluation expressions with other commands.

With the strptime function, you must specify the time format of the string so that the function can convert the string time into the correct UNIX time. The following table shows some examples:

Basic example

If the values in the timeStr field are hours and minutes, such as 11:59, the following example returns the time as a timestamp:

... | eval n=strptime(timeStr, "%H:%M")

Extended example

This example shows the results of using the strptime function.

Let's say you have a series of start and end times such as these:

When you run the following search, the eval command takes the string time values in the starttime field and returns the UNIX time that corresponds to the string time values.

...| eval startunix=strptime(starttime,"%a %B %d %H:%M:%S.%N %Y")

The results look something like this:

Usage

The value of the time() function will be different for each event, based on when the event is processed.

You can use this function with the eval and where commands, in the WHERE clause of the from command, and as part of evaluation expressions with other commands.

Basic example

This example shows the results of using the time() function.

Let's consider the following times:

To return the UNIX time when a result is processed, you first need to convert the starttime values to include microseconds.

... | eval epoch_time=strptime(starttime,"%s") 
| eval testtime=time()

• The first eval command takes the numbers in the starttime field and returns them with microseconds included.
• The second eval command creates the testtime field and returns the UNIX time at the instant the result was processed by the eval command.

Notice the difference in the microseconds between the values in the epoch_time and test_time fields. You can see that the test_time values increase with each result.