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What is the difference between now() and _time?

smanojkumar
Contributor

What is the difference between now() and _time?

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gcusello
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Hi @smanojkumar,

_time is the timestamp of each event and it's usually extracted from the raw event.

now() is a function, it's usully used in eval statements, that returns the date and time when the search runs.

So they give you different information in the same format (epochtime).

Ciao.

Giuseppe

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ITWhisperer
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

now() is in seconds, but there is a function time() which is in my environment goes to microseconds - _time as used by makeresults is usually the same as now()

| makeresults
| eval now=now()
| eval time=time()
| fieldformat now=strftime(now,"%F %T.%9N")
| fieldformat time=strftime(time,"%F %T.%9N")
| fieldformat _time=strftime(_time,"%F %T.%9N")

gcusello
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Hi @smanojkumar,

_time is the timestamp of each event and it's usually extracted from the raw event.

now() is a function, it's usully used in eval statements, that returns the date and time when the search runs.

So they give you different information in the same format (epochtime).

Ciao.

Giuseppe

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