How to produce a human readable date from $earliest$ or $latest$ variables from a date picker?

[bfnpmsz]

I have a dashboard form which contains several panels and are arranged in a 2 up format. The first column is the first week and the second column the second week of a two week window. The two week window can be picked from a date picker.

The date picker is returning $earliest$ and $latest$ as an epoch date, 1440997200.

What I want to do is convert the epoch date to a human readable format, %b %d, %Y, and place that into the title of each panel of the dashboard.

Here is my XML of the form. I hope it's not too confusing....

<form>
  <label>IT Governance</label>
  <fieldset autoRun="true" submitButton="false">
    <input type="time" searchWhenChanged="true">
      <default>
        <earliestTime>-14d@w1</earliestTime>
        <latestTime>@w0</latestTime>
      </default>
    </input>
  </fieldset>
  <row>
    <panel>
      <chart>
        <title>Top 10 Ticketed ATM's - $earliest$ to $latest$</title>
        <search>
          <query>* ClassName=Proview  eventtype="Notification Ticketed"  host=ALVIONIX01 earliest=$earliest$ latest=$latest$ [search ClassName=Proview  eventtype="Notification Ticketed"  host=ALVIONIX01 | reverse | head 1 | addinfo | eval earliest = relative_time(info_min_time, "@w1") | eval latest = relative_time(info_max_time, "-6d@w1") | fields earliest latest | format "(" "(" " " ")" "OR" ")" ]  | top  limit=10 InstanceName</query>
        </search>
        <option name="charting.axisLabelsX.majorLabelStyle.overflowMode">ellipsisNone</option>
        <option name="charting.axisLabelsX.majorLabelStyle.rotation">45</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleX.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleY.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleY2.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisX.scale">linear</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY.scale">linear</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY2.enabled">false</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY2.scale">inherit</option>
        <option name="charting.chart">column</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleMaximumSize">50</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleMinimumSize">10</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleSizeBy">area</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.nullValueMode">gaps</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.sliceCollapsingThreshold">0.01</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.stackMode">default</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.style">minimal</option>
        <option name="charting.drilldown">all</option>
        <option name="charting.layout.splitSeries">0</option>
        <option name="charting.legend.labelStyle.overflowMode">ellipsisMiddle</option>
        <option name="charting.legend.placement">right</option>
      </chart>
    </panel>
    <panel>
      <chart>
        <search>
          <query>* ClassName=Proview  eventtype="Notification Ticketed"  host=ALVIONIX01 earliest=$earliest$ latest=$latest$ [search ClassName=Proview  eventtype="Notification Ticketed"  host=ALVIONIX01 | reverse | head 1 | addinfo | eval earliest = relative_time(info_min_time, "+7d@w1") | eval latest = relative_time(info_max_time, "@w1") | fields earliest latest | format "(" "(" " " ")" "OR" ")" ]  | top  limit=10 InstanceName</query>
        </search>
        <option name="charting.axisLabelsX.majorLabelStyle.overflowMode">ellipsisNone</option>
        <option name="charting.axisLabelsX.majorLabelStyle.rotation">45</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleX.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleY.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleY2.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisX.scale">linear</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY.scale">linear</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY2.enabled">false</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY2.scale">inherit</option>
        <option name="charting.chart">column</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleMaximumSize">50</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleMinimumSize">10</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleSizeBy">area</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.nullValueMode">gaps</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.sliceCollapsingThreshold">0.01</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.stackMode">default</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.style">minimal</option>
        <option name="charting.drilldown">all</option>
        <option name="charting.layout.splitSeries">0</option>
        <option name="charting.legend.labelStyle.overflowMode">ellipsisMiddle</option>
        <option name="charting.legend.placement">right</option>
      </chart>
    </panel>
  </row>
</form>

As you can see, I can put the $earliest$ and $latest$ into the form and get the epoch back. I want to get a human readable date format so the user can see what the date range is for each panel.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

[MuS · Accepted solution]

Hi bfnpmsz,

I'm not sure if this will work at all, because using $earliest$ is returning epoch - so it would need some conversion first.
You can have a look at this run everywhere dashboard which uses a simple panel on top to display the search time range:

<form>
  <label>Display search time ranges in dashboard</label>
  <description></description>
  <fieldset submitButton="false">
    <input type="time" token="time">
      <label>Select time range:</label>
      <default>
        <earliest>@d</earliest>
        <latest>now</latest>
      </default>
    </input>
  </fieldset>
  <row>
    <panel>
      <single>
        <search>
          <query>|gentimes start=-1 | addinfo | convert ctime(*) | eval reportDate=info_min_time." to ".info_max_time | table reportDate</query>
          <earliest>$time.earliest$</earliest>
          <latest>$time.latest$</latest>
        </search>
        <option name="drilldown">none</option>
        <option name="beforeLabel">Report Date:</option>
        <option name="linkView">search</option>
        <option name="afterLabel">.</option>
        <option name="colorBy">value</option>
        <option name="colorMode">none</option>
        <option name="numberPrecision">0</option>
        <option name="showSparkline">1</option>
        <option name="showTrendIndicator">1</option>
        <option name="trendColorInterpretation">standard</option>
        <option name="trendDisplayMode">absolute</option>
        <option name="useColors">0</option>
        <option name="useThousandSeparators">1</option>
      </single>
    </panel>
  </row>
  <row>
    <panel>
      <chart>
        <title>Index _internal sourcetype count:</title>
        <search>
          <query>index=_internal | stats count by sourcetype</query>
          <earliest>$time.earliest$</earliest>
          <latest>$time.latest$</latest>
        </search>
        <option name="charting.axisLabelsX.majorLabelStyle.overflowMode">ellipsisNone</option>
        <option name="charting.axisLabelsX.majorLabelStyle.rotation">0</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleX.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleY.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisTitleY2.visibility">visible</option>
        <option name="charting.axisX.scale">linear</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY.scale">linear</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY2.enabled">0</option>
        <option name="charting.axisY2.scale">inherit</option>
        <option name="charting.chart">column</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleMaximumSize">50</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleMinimumSize">10</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.bubbleSizeBy">area</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.nullValueMode">gaps</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.showDataLabels">none</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.sliceCollapsingThreshold">0.01</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.stackMode">default</option>
        <option name="charting.chart.style">shiny</option>
        <option name="charting.drilldown">all</option>
        <option name="charting.layout.splitSeries">0</option>
        <option name="charting.layout.splitSeries.allowIndependentYRanges">0</option>
        <option name="charting.legend.labelStyle.overflowMode">ellipsisMiddle</option>
        <option name="charting.legend.placement">right</option>
      </chart>
    </panel>
  </row>
</form>

Hope this helps ...

cheers, MuS

[bfnpmsz]

MuS, Thanks for the quick response.

Your answer is not exactly what I need but I think we are on the right track now.

Your solution does put the date range in human readable form at the top of the dashboard in its own panel, but....

I want the individual date ranges for each panel. The left panel will be week #1 and the right panel will be week #2.

So my overall date range would be "08/31/2015 to 09/13/2015", that is shown on the top panel. Below that panel, the panel to the left would show the range "08/31/2015 to 09/6/2015" and the one to the right will show "09/07/2015 to 09/13/2015".

I'm sure there has to be a way to get this outcome.

[bfnpmsz]

Mus,

I added two panels to my dashboard which define the date range of the panels in that column. That was the best I could come up with.

Thanks for your help. Your solution showed me the way and then some.

Thanks again

[MuS]

Just tweak your dashboard to show it that way, I just provided an example to show you how it can be done.