# Delete series with numeric names

**URL:** <https://community.influxdata.com/t/delete-series-with-numeric-names/8864>\
**Category:** Store\
**Tags:** influxdb, time-series\
**Created:** [March 4, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/delete-series-with-numeric-names/8864 "2019-03-04T17:00:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RichardLucas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@RichardLucas](https://community.influxdata.com/u/RichardLucas)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/delete-series-with-numeric-names/8864/1 "2019-03-04T17:00:59Z")

</div>

Hi,

I’ve made a bit of a error while experimenting with InfluxDB and Telegraf’s csv file and have managed to create a bunch of measurements with numeric names. Which I’m unable to remove with the drop command

```
> drop measurement 99983224
ERR: error parsing query: found 99983224, expected identifier at line 1, char 18`

```

I’ve also tried

```
> drop measurement "99983224"
ERR: error parsing query: found 99983224, expected identifier at line 1, char 18`

```

How do I get rid of these measurements?

Version: InfluxDB 1.7.4

Kind regards

Richard Lucas

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MarcV](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/marcv/32/7676_2.png) [@MarcV](https://community.influxdata.com/u/MarcV)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 5:41pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/delete-series-with-numeric-names/8864/2 "2019-03-04T17:41:16Z")

</div>

Hi ,  
here it works , you could try delete from “99983224”  
if drop measurement does not work

```
 > insert 99983224 field1=5
 > select * from "99983224"
 name: 99983224
 time field1
  ---- ------
 1551721147552674690 5
 > drop measurement "99983224"  
 > select * from "99983224"
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RichardLucas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@RichardLucas](https://community.influxdata.com/u/RichardLucas)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/delete-series-with-numeric-names/8864/3 "2019-03-04T17:54:11Z")

</div>

Hi Marc,

Thanks - that works a dream with the 2 steps - delete anything in them, and then drop the measurement.

I hadn’t realised that I needed to do both.

Thanks for taking the time to help.

Richard

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MarcV](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/marcv/32/7676_2.png) [@MarcV](https://community.influxdata.com/u/MarcV)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/delete-series-with-numeric-names/8864/4 "2019-03-04T17:55:39Z")

</div>

One of them is enough 🙂 delete everything/anything removes the measurement , it is strange the drop didn’t work for you , i have 1.7.4 on linux

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MarcV](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/community.influxdata.com/marcv/32/7676_2.png) [@MarcV](https://community.influxdata.com/u/MarcV)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/delete-series-with-numeric-names/8864/5 "2019-03-04T18:05:45Z")

</div>

Do you have an idea what the problem could be here ? …

[Csv problem telegraf](https://community.influxdata.com/t/csv-file-data-into-influxdb-via-telegraf/8863)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RichardLucas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@RichardLucas](https://community.influxdata.com/u/RichardLucas)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 12:44pm UTC](https://community.influxdata.com/t/delete-series-with-numeric-names/8864/6 "2019-03-05T12:44:14Z")

</div>

I have no idea what has happened over night, except we restarted our servers, and now the `drop measurement` command works as you demo’d.

I piped the list of numerical names into a file and then passed that into this little bash script that executed a influx command to drop the metric.

```auto
#!/usr/bin/env bash
for met in $(cat "${1}"); do
    echo $met
    ./monitoring/influxdb/influx -port 8086 -database="telegraf" -execute "drop measurement \"${met}\""
done

```