Informational functions

The following list contains the functions that you can use to return information about a value.

For information about using string and numeric fields in functions, and nesting functions, see Evaluation functions.

isarray(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and evaluates whether the value is an array data type. The function returns TRUE if the value is an array.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following search returns True because [1, 2, 3] is an array.

| makeresults | eval result = if(isarray("[1, 2, 3]"), "True", "False")

The result of the following search is False because 1 is not an array.

| makeresults | eval result = if(isarray(1), "True", "False")

isbool(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and evaluates whether the value is a Boolean data type. The function returns TRUE if the value is Boolean.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Use this function with other functions that return Boolean data types, such as cidrmatch and mvfind.

This function cannot be used to determine if field values are "true" or "false" because field values are either string or number data types. Instead, use syntax such as <fieldname>=true OR <fieldname>=false to determine field values.

Basic examples

The following search returns True because 1==2 is Boolean.

| makeresults | eval result = if(isbool(1==2), "True", "False")

The following search returns False because the value a is not Boolean.

| makeresults | eval result = if(isbool(a), "True", "False")

isdouble(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and evaluates whether the value is a double data type. The function returns TRUE if the value is a double value.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following search returns True because the value 3.546 is a double.

| makeresults | eval result = if(isdouble(3.546), "True", "False")

isint(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and returns TRUE if the value is an integer.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following example uses the isint function with the if function. A field, "n", is added to each result with a value of "int" or "not int", depending on the result of the isint function. If the value of "field" is a number, the isint function returns TRUE and the value adds the value "int" to the "n" field.

... | eval n=if(isint(field),"int", "not int")

The following example shows how to use the isint function with the where command.

... | where isint(field)

ismv(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and evaluates whether the field is a multivalue data type. The function returns TRUE if the field is a multivalue.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following search returns True because the my_multival field is a multivalue.

| makeresults | eval my_multival="one,two,three" | makemv tokenizer="([^,]+),?" my_multival | eval result = if(ismv(my_multival), "True", "False")

The search results look like this:

_time	my_multival	result
2024-12-11 00:49:31	one	True
	two
	three

isnotnull(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and returns TRUE if the value is not NULL.

Usage

This function is useful for checking for whether or not a field contains a value.

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following example uses the isnotnull function with the if function. A field, "n", is added to each result with a value of "yes" or "no", depending on the result of the isnotnull function. If the value of "field" is a number, the isnotnull function returns TRUE and the value adds the value "yes" to the "n" field.

... | eval n=if(isnotnull(field),"yes","no")

The following example shows how to use the isnotnull function with the where command.

... | where isnotnull(field)

isnull(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and returns TRUE if the value is NULL..

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following example uses the isnull function with the if function. A field, "n", is added to each result with a value of "yes" or "no", depending on the result of the isnull function. If there is no value for "field" in a result, the isnull function returns TRUE and adds the value "yes" to the "n" field.

... | eval n=if(isnull(field),"yes","no")

The following example shows how to use the isnull function with the where command.

... | where isnull(field)

isnum(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and returns TRUE if the value is a number.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following example uses the isnum function with the if function. A field, "n", is added to each result with a value of "yes" or "no", depending on the result of the isnum function. If the value of "field" is a number, the isnum function returns TRUE and the value adds the value "yes" to the "n" field.

... | eval n=if(isnum(field),"yes","no")

The following example shows how to use the isnum function with the where command.

... | where isnum(field)

isobject(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and evaluates whether the value is an object. The function returns TRUE if a string is a valid JSON object.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following example returns False indicating that the cities value isn't a valid JSON object.

| makeresults | eval result = if(isobject("cities"), "True", "False")

The following example returns True because the cities object is a valid JSON object.

| makeresults | eval result = if(isobject(json_object("cities", 6)), "True", "False")

Say you run the following search.

| makeresults |eval is_an_object = if(isobject("{cities: \"3\"}"), "is object", "is not object")

Your results look like this.

_time	is_an_object
is_an_object	is not object

isstr(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and returns TRUE if the value is a string.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following example uses the isstr function with the if function. A field, "n", is added to each result with a value of "yes" or "no", depending on the result of the isstr function. If the value of "field" is a string, the isstr function returns TRUE and the value adds the value "yes" to the "n" field.

... | eval n=if(isstr(field),"yes","no")

The following example shows how to use the isstr function with the where command.

... | where isstr(field)

typeof(<value>)

Description

This function takes one argument and returns the data type of the argument.

Usage

You can use this function with the eval, fieldformat, and where commands, and as part of eval expressions.

Basic examples

The following example takes one argument and returns a string representation of its type. This example returns "NumberStringBoolInvalid"

... | eval n=typeof(12) + typeof("string") + typeof(1==2) + typeof(badfield)

The following example creates a single result using the makeresults command.

| makeresults

For example:

_time
2018-08-14 14:00:15

To determine the data type of the _time field, use the eval command with the typeof function. For example:

| makeresults | eval t=typeof(_time)

The results are:

_time	t
2018-08-14 14:00:15	Number