How to delete columns of a series in InfluxDB

Question

Is there any solution to remove a specific column of a series in InfluxDB?

Its seems that this feature is not implemented. But does anybody have found any kind of trick to do that?

Violist

In case anyone wants a work around with influxdb 2 to avoid selecting some columns, it's called drop, see here: https://mcmap.net/q/661292/-what-is-the-equivalent-of-select-lt-certain-columns-gt-in-flux-query-language – Cheshire

Answer 1

There is no way to delete a "column" (i.e. a field or a tag) from an Influx measurement. Here's the feature request for that.

You'll have to SELECT INTO a different measurement, excluding the columns you don't want:

SELECT useful_field, nice_tag INTO new_measurement FROM measurement

Nanine

Answer 2

I know this question is a bit stale, but Influx still does not have this feature. We can only speculate about why not.

As I mentioned in this question, though, since Influx just uses binary files for data and metadata you "just" have to figure out the formatting to edit these files. Luckily, it seems some people have already done this for you. In my search, I found Infix, from ABC Arbitrage, which provides a command-line tool to rename, remove, and modify columns on Influx database files. The drawback is that it requires stopping the Influx service, so if you have a system that is not tolerant of downtime, you may still be out of luck.

Zsolway

Answer 3

Probably too late, but you can use

USE table_name, DROP SERIES FROM "my_column_name"

https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v1.8/query_language/manage-database/#drop-series-from-the-index-with-drop-series

Archpriest

This does not work. DROP SERIES FROM expects a measurement name, not a field key. – Flunky