The following list contains the functions that you can use with string values.
For information about using string and numeric fields in functions, and nesting functions, see Overview of SPL2 eval functions.
len(<str>)
This function returns the character length of a string.
Usage
The <str>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
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 returns the character length of the values in the categoryId
field for each result.
... | eval n=len(myfield)
lower(<str>)
This function returns a string in lowercase.
Usage
The <str>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
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 returns the values in the username
field in lowercase.
... | eval username=lower(username)
ltrim(<str>,<trim_chars>)
This function removes characters from the left side of a string.
Usage
The <str>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
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.
The <trim_chars>
argument is optional. If not specified, spaces and tabs are removed from the left side of the string.
Basic example
The following example trims the leading spaces and all of the occurrences of the letter Z from the left side of the string. The value returned is abcZZ
.
... | eval x=ltrim(" ZZZZabcZZ ", " Z")
replace(<str>,<regex>,<replacement>)
This function substitutes the replacement string for every occurrence of the regular expression in the string.
Usage
The <str>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
The <replacement>
argument can also reference groups that are matched in the <regex
using perl-compatible regular expressions (PCRE) syntax.
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.
To replace a backslash ( \ ) character, you must escape the backslash twice. This is because the replace
function occurs inside an eval expression. The eval expression performs one level of escaping before passing the regular expression to PCRE. Then PCRE performs its own escaping.
The Edge Processor solution supports Regular Expression 2 (RE2) syntax instead of PCRE syntax. In particular RE2 and PCRE accept different syntax for named capture groups. See Regular expression syntax for Edge Processor pipelines in Use Edge Processors.
Basic example
The following example returns the values in the date
field, with the month and day numbers switched. If the input is 1/14/2023 the return value would be 14/1/2023.
... | eval n=replace(date, "^(\d{1,2})/(\d{1,2})/", "\2/\1/")
rtrim(<str>,<trim_chars>)
This function removes the trim characters from the right side of the string.
Usage
The <str>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
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.
The <trim_chars>
argument is optional. If not specified, spaces and tabs are removed from the right side of the string.
Basic example
The following example trims the leading spaces and all of the occurrences of the letter Z from the right side of the string. The value returned is ZZZZabc
.
... | eval n=rtrim(" ZZZZabcZZ ", " Z")
spath(<value>,<path>)
Use this function to extract information from the structured data formats XML and JSON.
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.
The <value>
is an input source field.
The <path>
is an spath expression for the location path to the value that you want to extract from.
- If
<path>
is a literal string, you need to enclose the string in double quotation marks. - If
<path>
is a field name, with values that are the location paths, the field name doesn't need quotation marks. Using a field name for<path>
might result in a multivalue field.
Basic example
The following example returns the values of locDesc
elements from the _raw
field..
... | eval locDesc=spath(_raw, "vendorProductSet.product.desc.locDesc")
The following example returns the hashtags from a twitter event.
index=twitter | eval output=spath(_raw, "entities.hashtags")
substr(<str>,<start>,<length>)
This function returns a substring of a string, beginning at the start index. The length of the substring specifies the number of character to return.
Usage
The <str>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
The indexes follow SQLite semantics; they start at 1. Negative indexes can be used to indicate a start from the end of the string.
The <length>
is optional, and if not specified returns the rest of the string.
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 concatenates the first 3 letters in the word splendid
with the last 3 letters in the word chunk
:
... | eval n=substr("splendid", 1, 3) + substr("chunk", -3)
The result is the word splunk
.
trim(<str>,<trim_chars>)
This function removes the trim characters from both sides of the string.
Usage
The <str>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
The <trim_chars>
argument is optional. If not specified, spaces and tabs are removed from both sides of the string.
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 trims the leading spaces and all of the occurrences of the letter Z from the left and right sides of the string. The value returned is abc
.
... | eval n=trim(" ZZZZabcZZ ", " Z")
upper(<str>)
This function returns a string in uppercase.
Usage
The <str>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
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 returns the values in the username
field in uppercase.
... | eval n=upper(username)
urldecode(<url>)
This function takes a URL string and returns the unescaped or decoded URL string.
Usage
The <url>
argument can be the name of a string field or a string literal.
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 returns "http://www.splunk.com/download?r=header".
... | eval n=urldecode("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.splunk.com%2Fdownload%3Fr%3Dheader")
See also
- Function information
- Quick Reference for SPL2 eval functions
- Overview of SPL2 eval functions
- Naming function arguments in the SPL2 Search Manual
- Related functions
- tostring