Time and time zones

InfluxQL is designed for working with time series data and includes features specifically for working with time. You can review the following ways to work with time and timestamps in your InfluxQL queries:

• Time syntax
  • Add and subtract time values
• Query time range
  • Supported operators
• Query examples
• Time zone clause
• Notable behaviors
  • Cannot query multiple time ranges
  • Querying future data with a GROUP BY time() clause
  • Cannot use parameters for durations

Time syntax

InfluxQL supports the following timestamp literal syntaxes:

'2006-01-02T15:04:05.00Z' -- RFC3339 date-time string
'2006-01-02 15:04:05.00'  -- RFC3339-like date-time string
1136189045000000000       -- Unix nanosecond epoch time
1136189045s               -- Unix epoch time

• RFC3339 date-time string: String literal using the RFC3339 timestamp format, YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnnZ.
• RFC3339-like date-time string: String literal using the RFC3339-like timestamp format, YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn.
• Unix nanosecond epoch time: Integer that represents the number of nanoseconds elapsed since the Unix epoch.
• Unix epoch time: Duration literal that represents the number of specified time units elapsed since the Unix epoch. View supported duration units.

Supported timestamp values

Add and subtract time values

Timestamp values support addition and subtraction operations with duration literals. Add (+) or subtract (-) a duration to or from a timestamp to return an updated timestamp.

'2023-01-01T00:00:00Z' + 2h -- Resolves to 2023-01-01T02:00:00Z
'2023-01-01 00:00:00' - 20h -- Resolves to 2022-12-31T04:00:00Z
1672531200000000000 + 1y    -- Resolves to 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

Query time range

To specify the time range of a query, use conditional expressions in the WHERE clause that compare the value of the time column to an absolute timestamp or a relative timestamp.

• Absolute time range: Define query time bounds with timestamp literals

  WHERE time >= '2023-01-01T00:00:00Z' AND time <= '2023-07-01T00:00:00Z'
  WHERE time >= '2023-01-01 00:00:00' AND time <= '2023-07-01 00:00:00'
  WHERE time >= 1672531200000000000 AND time <= 1688169600000000000
  WHERE time >= 1672531200s and time <= 1688169600000ms
  

• Relative time range: Define query time bounds with a duration literal added to or subtracted from timestamp literals.

  Use now() to return the current system time (UTC).

  -- Query data from the last day
  WHERE time >= now() - 1d
  
  -- Query data from the previous week
  WHERE time >= now() - 1w AND time <= now() - 2w
  
  -- Query data relative to a specific time
  WHERE time >= '2023-01-01' - 1w AND time <= '2023-01-01' + 1w
  

Supported operators

Conditional expressions with time operands support the following comparison operators:

Query examples

The following examples use the Get started home sensor sample dataset.

SELECT *
FROM home
WHERE
  room = 'Kitchen'
  AND time >= '2022-01-01T08:00:00Z'
  AND time <= '2022-01-01T12:00:00Z'

SELECT *
FROM home
WHERE
  room = 'Kitchen'
  AND time >= '2022-01-01 08:00:00'
  AND time <= '2022-01-01 12:00:00'

SELECT *
FROM home
WHERE
  room = 'Kitchen'
  AND time >= 1641024000000000000
  AND time <= 1641038400000000000

SELECT *
FROM home
WHERE
  room = 'Kitchen'
  AND time >= 1641024000s
  AND time <= 1641038400s

SELECT * FROM home WHERE time >= '2022-01-01T20:00:00Z' - 2h

SELECT * FROM home WHERE time >= now() - 2h

Time zone clause

By default, InfluxDB stores and returns timestamps in UTC. Use the time zone clause and the tz() function to apply a time zone offset to UTC times and return timestamps in the specified time zone including any applicable seasonal offset such as Daylight Savings Time (DST) or British Summer Time (BST).

SELECT_clause FROM_clause [WHERE_clause] [GROUP_BY_clause] [ORDER_BY_clause] [LIMIT_clause] [OFFSET_clause] [SLIMIT_clause] [SOFFSET_clause] tz('time_zone')

• time_zone: Time zone string literal to adjust times to. Uses time zone names defined in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority time zone database.

Time zone example

SELECT *
FROM home
WHERE
  room = 'Kitchen'
  AND time >= '2022-01-01T08:00:00Z'
  AND time <= '2022-01-01T12:00:00Z'
tz('America/Chicago')

Notable behaviors

• Cannot query multiple time ranges
• Querying future data with a GROUP BY time() clause
• Cannot use parameters for durations

Cannot query multiple time ranges

InfluxDB does not support using OR in the WHERE clause to query multiple time ranges. For example, the following query returns no results:

SELECT *
FROM home
WHERE
  (time >= '2022-01-01T08:00:00Z' AND time <= '2022-01-01T10:00:00Z')
  OR (time >= '2022-01-01T18:00:00Z' AND time <= '2022-01-01T20:00:00Z')

Querying future data with a GROUP BY time() clause

Queries that do not specify time bounds in the WHERE clause and do not include a GROUP BY time() clause use the minimum and maximum timestamps as the default time range. If the query includes a GROUP BY time() clause, the default time range is between 1677-09-21T00:12:43.145224193Z and now().

To query data with timestamps that occur in the future (after now()), provide an explicit upper bound in the WHERE clause.

Cannot use parameters for durations

Currently, InfluxDB doesn’t support using parameters for durations in parameterized queries.