# Change type from string to integer **URL:** \ **Category:** InfluxDB 2\ **Tags:** influxdb, types\ **Created:** [March 1, 2021, 2:25pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634 "2021-03-01T14:25:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2021, 2:25pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/1 "2021-03-01T14:25:45Z")
Unfortunately I have a measurement that have fields with an number as the “\_value” but the type is a **string instead of an integer**. I want to convert the “\_value” to integer (overwrite). How can I convert this? Unfortunately I found no easy way to do this. That’s why I write a query to get this measurement convert this to integer and write this to a new bucket: ```auto datatoconvert = from(bucket: "telegraf") |> range(start: v.timeRangeStart, stop: v.timeRangeStop) |> filter(fn: (r) => r._measurement == "asset_vm_cmdb") |> toInt() datatoconvert |> filter(fn: (r) => exists r._value) |> to(bucket: "typeconversion", org: "") ``` I can’t run this query, maybe because of reaching the timeout. So I thought I can prevent this by create a “task” for this. But the task always fails with following error message: **could not execute task run; Err: context canceled: context canceled** Can someone help me? ---
**Author:** ![FixTestRepeat](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/fixtestrepeat/32/5208_2.png) [@FixTestRepeat](https://community.influxdata.com/u/FixTestRepeat)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2021, 7:00pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/2 "2021-03-01T19:00:57Z")
> [@fluxator](#): > > Unfortunately I found no easy way to do this. > That’s why I write a query to get this measurement convert this to integer and write this to a new bucket Yep, agreed. But +1 on trying to convert your data, I ended up just dropping and creating a new bucket > [@fluxator](#): > > ```auto > datatoconvert = from(bucket: "telegraf") > |> range(start: v.timeRangeStart, stop: v.timeRangeStop) > |> filter(fn: (r) => r._measurement == "asset_vm_cmdb") > |> toInt() > > ``` If you switch to the raw data view in dataExplorer , does datatoconvert contain anything ? (Ie. Does only the first part of the query work, or are both failing/timing out) If you do get data from the first part, what is the smallest time window you can select for that still contains, say 10 records? Can you then run the 2nd query as well or does it still timeout? ---
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2021, 7:09am UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/3 "2021-03-02T07:09:39Z")
> [@fluxator](#): > > ```auto > datatoconvert = from(bucket: "telegraf") > |> range(start: v.timeRangeStart, stop: v.timeRangeStop) > |> filter(fn: (r) => r._measurement == "asset_vm_cmdb") > |> toInt() > > ``` First, thanks for your reply I switched to the raw data view but the main issue is the whole browser stucks when I run this query. Unfortunately I can’t get even when I select a very small window. So in this bucket/measurement are data from a script that runs every 24h (asset data from over 2700 VMs). Even when I run the query against one intervall I reach a “timeout”. It works only when I filter for example the query to one VM and then everything works. ---
**Author:** ![Franky1](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/franky1/32/6666_2.png) [@Franky1](https://community.influxdata.com/u/Franky1)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2021, 9:19am UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/4 "2021-03-02T09:19:54Z")
> [@fluxator](#): > > Even when I run the query against one intervall I reach a “timeout”. That sounds strange… 🤔 Are you sure your data is clean? So you are sure that there is always a “string integer” in the value? > [@fluxator](#): > > It works only when I filter for example the query to one VM and then everything works. So a workaround could be to adapt the flux script so that it iterates over all VMs? Another possibility would be to solve the problem right at the time of capture in Telegraf and convert it there? ---
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2021, 9:38am UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/5 "2021-03-02T09:38:38Z")
Not always. So some fields are correct Integers and some are “string integers”. That’s is a nice idea. So I have to look how I can make a foreach and come back to this post. The problem is, the data are not coming from telegraf. We have a PowerShell script that collects the data and writes directly to influx. And there was the issue with the types. I fixed the script right now but I can’t not write new data in influx because of the data type difference. ---
**Author:** ![FixTestRepeat](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/fixtestrepeat/32/5208_2.png) [@FixTestRepeat](https://community.influxdata.com/u/FixTestRepeat)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2021, 9:55am UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/6 "2021-03-02T09:55:26Z")
Probably only as a last resort, but you can export all the data within a bucket. My understanding is the format pops out as line records. If so, you could fix the historical data there (eg. Using find/replace, or even power shell.) Once the data is corrected you could either drop the old bucket and import from the cleaned export, or import into a new bucket altogether. > **[influx export | InfluxDB OSS 2.6 Documentation](https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v2.0/reference/cli/influx/export/#export-buckets-by-id)** > > The influx export command exports existing resources as an InfluxDB template. ---
**Author:** ![Franky1](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/franky1/32/6666_2.png) [@Franky1](https://community.influxdata.com/u/Franky1)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2021, 10:09am UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/7 "2021-03-02T10:09:25Z")
> [@fluxator](#): > > Not always. So some fields are correct Integers and some are “string integers”. That could be the problem. What happens when the `toInt()` function gets an integer instead of a string? Idea: If you can do type checking in flux (is that possible?) you could convert only the string types? ---
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/8 "2021-03-03T12:32:19Z")
@FixTestRepeat unfortunately this data is in a bucket with a lot of other datas (for example from telegraf agent,…) and I can’t export the whole bucket and I found no solution to export only a measurement from the bucket. @Franky1 Thanks for the idea but I found no way to check the types in flux (Unfortunately I think there is no “type checking function” in Flux). Is there really no way in Flux to overwrite the type of some fields in a measurement? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Franky1](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/franky1/32/6666_2.png) [@Franky1](https://community.influxdata.com/u/Franky1)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 7:12pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/9 "2021-03-03T19:12:07Z")
> [@fluxator](#): > > Not always. So some fields are correct Integers and some are “string integers”. In the meantime, have you made sure that these mixed data types are the real problem? ---
**Author:** ![FixTestRepeat](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/fixtestrepeat/32/5208_2.png) [@FixTestRepeat](https://community.influxdata.com/u/FixTestRepeat)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/10 "2021-03-03T20:48:46Z")
> [@fluxator](#): > > Is there really no way in Flux to overwrite the type of some fields in a measurement? @scott or @Anaisdg , can either of you confirm if there is a quick and simple way to handle this? ---
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 10:10am UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/11 "2021-03-04T10:10:47Z")
@Franky1 I am not sure how can I verify this but I think this is the issue or maybe there is a Bug that timeouts my queries and that’s the reason that I can’t convert the type. ---
**Author:** ![scott](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/scott/32/16492_2.png) [@scott](https://community.influxdata.com/u/scott)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 4:57pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/12 "2021-03-04T16:57:48Z")
@fluxator @Franky1 How large of a time range are you querying and what is the resolution of your data? To me, it sounds like you’re potentially pulling back a lot of data points. There are some operations that Flux can “push down” to the underlying data storage engine and perform there (much faster). In your query, the `range` and `filter` operations are pushed down to storage, but `toInt` cannot be pushed down. Flux has to store all of the data returned from `filter` in memory and operate on it there. I think this is why your query is timing out. You’re likely running out of memory. Try querying smaller time ranges or more specific sets of data. When it comes to replacing a field with a new type, the only way to do that is to write the type-casted field to a new bucket. If you try to write the updated field to the same bucket, the request will fail due to a type conflict. ---
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 10:52am UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/13 "2021-03-05T10:52:54Z")
@scott The time range I query is 30 days, because the bucket has a retention time of 30 days and I want to change the type of three fields for the whole bucket. But the resolution in this bucket for this measurement is low (the data cames from an PowerShell script each 24h). But even when I run the query for only 1 intervall then the query “times out” or stuck. ( The InfluxDB VM has a lot of power, 8 Cores & 64GB Memory. It doesn’t look like the memory is running out while I run the query and watch the memory usage with “htop”. I know, but that’s why I want to get all the data, change/convert the type and write this down to a new measurement or bucket. But as I mentioned, this is not working. ---
**Author:** ![scott](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/scott/32/16492_2.png) [@scott](https://community.influxdata.com/u/scott)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/14 "2021-03-05T14:54:30Z")
- Do you get any errors in the `influxd` output or in your browser console? - What version of InfluxDB are you running? ---
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 3:34pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/15 "2021-03-05T15:34:21Z")
@scott - If you mean in the daemon logs (sudo journalctl -u influxdb.service) then I can’t find any errors or something interesting. I also can’t find any errors in the chrome console but the InfluxDB GUI hangs after about 80 seconds: - I run InfluxDB in Version 2.0.2 `(84496e5)`. ---
**Author:** ![scott](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/scott/32/16492_2.png) [@scott](https://community.influxdata.com/u/scott)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/16 "2021-03-05T15:53:52Z")
Hmm, that’s really strange. I don’t see anything about that query that would make it hang. Could you try running: ```javascript from(bucket: "telegraf") |> range(start: v.timeRangeStart, stop: v.timeRangeStop) |> filter(fn: (r) => r._measurement == "asset_vm_cmdb") |> count() ``` If that works, run: ```javascript from(bucket: "telegraf") |> range(start: v.timeRangeStart, stop: v.timeRangeStop) |> filter(fn: (r) => r._measurement == "asset_vm_cmdb") |> count() |> group() |> sum() ``` ---
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 3:59pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/17 "2021-03-05T15:59:04Z")
@scott unfortunately this query also hangs after ~3seconds. ---
**Author:** ![scott](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/scott/32/16492_2.png) [@scott](https://community.influxdata.com/u/scott)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 6:20pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/18 "2021-03-05T18:20:05Z")
Does it return anything when you query the last hour rather than 30 days? ---
**Author:** ![fluxator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@fluxator](https://community.influxdata.com/u/fluxator)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 7:32am UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/19 "2021-03-08T07:32:55Z")
@scott If I change the timerange to the shortest possible time (last time the script was running), unfortunately there is no difference “timeout occurs”. ---
**Author:** ![scott](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/scott/32/16492_2.png) [@scott](https://community.influxdata.com/u/scott)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 3:28pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634/20 "2021-03-08T15:28:40Z")
I don’t recall any defect in 2.0.2 that would cause this, but have you tried upgrading to 2.0.4? [Next page](https://community.influxdata.com/t/change-type-from-string-to-integer/18634.md?page=2)