topic How Can I use Stats Avg() On a Datetime Field? in Splunk Search

How Can I use Stats Avg() On a Datetime Field?

vtsguerrero — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 15:49:42 GMT

I have this indexed field which is read by splunk as a string, I need the average length, but the data has no Day, month or year, just time.

Example data :
03:20:15
02:45:07
03:12:00
04:05:23

How do I convert these so Splunk can get the average??

Thanks in advance!

Re: How Can I use Stats Avg() On a Datetime Field?

pradeepkumarg — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 16:26:15 GMT

May be do an eval and convert them to total seconds into a new field.. and do average on the new field.

Re: How Can I use Stats Avg() On a Datetime Field?

vtsguerrero — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 17:30:01 GMT

What function could I use to convert em with an eval? I mean, I dont have the full date...

Re: How Can I use Stats Avg() On a Datetime Field?

acharlieh — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 18:38:20 GMT

One method could be to use the convert command to change the field from a duration into to seconds, then average with some form of stats, and if necessary use the tostring function in an eval to change back to duration format.

... | convert dur2sec(field) | stats avg(field) as field | eval field=tostring(round(field),"duration")

Now with any solution there are some assumptions of your data, with this convert method, it assumes that

No fractional seconds are present e.g. "01:02:03.456" would not work
Days are specified as "D+" e.g. "1+0:0:1" will work but "1:0:0:1" will not
Hours and minutes respect their respective moduli (0-23 hours, 0-59 minutes)

If your data doesn't conform to this, then you could craft your own regular expression and use rex command to pull out the pieces and use an eval to combine into seconds:

... | rex field=field "^(?<dur_h>\d+):(?<dur_m>\d+):(?<dur_s>\d+(?:\.\d+)?)$" | eval dur = (dur_h*60 + dur_m)*60 + dur_s | stats avg(dur) as field

Re: How Can I use Stats Avg() On a Datetime Field?

vtsguerrero — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 13:24:22 GMT

Thanks a lot @acharlieh ♦ !
Worked perfectly!
Just tryin' now to get the difference from the last head 1 event duration to the average duration.
With the average and the last event I shall get the deviation to generate a red, yellow or green status.
Thanks!