Work with strings

A string type represents a sequence of characters. Strings are immutable and cannot be modified once created.

Type name: string

• String syntax
• Convert data types to strings
• Operate on strings
• Interpolate strings
• Concatenate strings

String syntax

A string literal is represented by a sequence of characters enclosed in double quotes ("). Any character may appear inside a string literal except an unescaped double quote. String literals support several escape sequences and hex encoding using \x as a prefix.

"abc"
"string with double \" quote"
"string with backslash \\"
"日本語"
"\xe6\x97\xa5\xe6\x9c\xac\xe8\xaa\x9e"

Convert data types to strings

Use the string() function to convert other basic types to strings:

• boolean
• bytes
• duration
• float
• int
• uint
• time

string(v: 42)
// Returns "42"

Convert regular expressions to strings

To convert a regular expression to a string:

1. Import the regexp package.
2. Use regexp.getString() and provide the regular expression to convert to a string.

import "regexp"

regexp.getString(r: /[a-zA-Z]/)
// Returns [a-zA-Z] (string)

Convert data types to hexadecimal strings

To convert basic types to hexadecimal strings:

1. Import the contrib/bonitoo-io/hex package.
2. Use hex.string() to convert other a value to a hexadecimal string.

import "contrib/bonitoo-io/hex"

hex.string(v: 123456)
// Returns 1e240

Convert columns to strings

Flux lets you iterate over rows in a stream of tables and convert columns to strings.

To convert the _value column to strings, use the toString() function.

data
    |> toString()

To convert any column to strings:

1. Use map() to iterate over and rewrite rows.
2. Use string() to convert columns values to strings.

data
    |> map(fn: (r) => ({ r with level: string(v: r.level) }))

Operate on strings

Use functions in the Flux strings package to perform operations including:

• Compare two strings
• Replace substrings in a string
• Return the length of a string
• Split a string into an array
• Join an array into a string
• and more

Interpolate strings

To interpolate strings in another Flux string, enclose embedded expressions in a dollar sign and curly braces ${}. Flux replaces the placeholder with the result of the embedded expression and returns a string literal.

name = "John"
"My name is ${name}."
// My name is John.

d = 1m
"the answer is ${d}"
// the answer is 1m

t0 = 2016-06-13T17:43:50Z
"the answer is ${t0}"
// the answer is 2016-06-13T17:43:50.000000000Z

p = {name: "John", age: 42}
"My name is ${p.name} and I'm ${p.age} years old."
// My name is John and I'm 42 years old.

String interpolation expressions must satisfy the Stringable constraint.

Concatenate strings

To concatenate Flux strings, use the + operator between string values or expressions that resolve to strings. Flux resolves expressions and returns a single concatenated string.

name = "John"
"My name is " + name + "."
// My name is John.

d = 1m
"the answer is " + string(v: d)
// the answer is 1m

t0 = 2016-06-13T17:43:50Z
"the answer is " + string(v: t0)
// the answer is 2016-06-13T17:43:50.000000000Z

p = {name: "John", age: 42}
"My name is " + p.name + " and I'm " + string(v: p.age) + " years old."
// My name is John and I'm 42 years old.