Date formats in fields

In spreadsheets, it is common to see a wide variety of date formats. Sometimes they are based on one of the default ISO formats.

Elasticsearch uses a set of these built-in formats to understand date and time values. For more information, see the Elasticsearch reference documentation.

However, some spreadsheets use date formats that are not based on a default. To overcome this issue, you can specify the format to be used during import by using the Advanced Mapping option.

When a Date type is used, switch on Advanced Mapping to open a text field where you can specify a custom mapping in a JSON format.

image

Looking at the founded_date samples above, the custom mapping required is as follows:

{
  "format": "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm"
}

Ensure you use the correct case (upper or lower) for each symbol, as the meaning can vary with the case.

The following table contains information to help you construct most date- and time-based custom mappings. For more detailed information, see DateTimeFormatter in the Java documentation.

All letters 'A' to 'Z' and 'a' to 'z' are reserved as pattern letters. The following pattern letters are defined:

Symbol Meaning Presentation Examples

G

era

text

AD; Anno Domini; A

u

year

year

2004; 04

y

year-of-era

year

2004; 04

D

day-of-year

day

189

M/L

month-of-year

number/text

7; 07; Jul; July; J

d

day-of-month

number

10

Q/q

quarter-of-year

number/text

3; 03; Q3; 3rd quarter

Y

week-based-year

year

1996; 96

w

week-of-week-based-year

number

27

W

week-of-month

number

4

E

day-of-week

test

Tue; Tuesday; T

e/c

localized day-of-week

number/text

2; 02; Tue; Tuesday; T

F

week-of-month

number

3

a

am-pm-of-day

text

PM

h

clock-hour-of-am-pm (1-12)

number

12

k

hour-of-am-pm (0-11)

number

0

K

clock-hour-of-am-pm (1-24)

number

0

H

hour-of-day (0-23)

number

0

m

minute-of-hour

number

30

s

second-of-minute

number

55

S

fraction-of-second

fraction

978

A

milli-of-day

number

1234

n

nano-of-second

number

987654321

N

nano-of-day

number

1234000000

V

time-zone ID

zone-id

America/Los_Angeles; Z; -08:30

z

time-zone name

zone-name

Pacific Standard Time; PST

O

localized zone-offset

offset-O

GMT+8; GMT+08:00; UTC-08:00;

X

zone-offset 'Z' for zero

offset-X

Z; -08; -0830; -08:30; -083015; -08:30:15;

x

zone-offset

offset-x

+0000; -08; -0830; -08:30; -083015; -08:30:15;

Z

zone-offset

offset-Z

+0000; -0800; -08:00;

p

pad next

pad modifier

1

'

escape for text

delimiter

''

single quote

literal

'

[

optional section start

]

optional section end

#

Reserved for future use

\{

Reserved for future use

}

Reserved for future use