Mathematical Operators

This is archived documentation for InfluxData product versions that are no longer maintained. For newer documentation, see the latest InfluxData documentation.

Note: Currently all mathematical operators work solely on floats. For the moment being any int involved will be converted to a float as any operation performed on an int would return a null value. This fixes the problem for all integer values up to 2^53. Issue 3614 tracks implementing true integer math, which will support values up to 2^63.

Mathematical operators follow the standard order of operations. That is, parentheses take precedence to division and multiplication, which takes precedence to addition and substraction. For example 5 / 2 + 3 * 2 = (5 / 2) + (3 * 2) and 5 + 2 * 3 - 2 = 5 + (2 * 3) - 2.

Supported Operators

Note: Any expression that involves adding, subtracting, or dividing by 0 yields a null value. This is not intentional and is the result of a bug. See issue 3000.

Addition

You can add a constant.

SELECT A + 5 FROM add

You can add together other field keys.

SELECT A + B FROM add

Subtraction

You can subtract a constant.

SELECT 1 - A FROM sub

You can subtract one field key from another field key.

SELECT A - B FROM sub

Multiplication

You can multiply by a constant.

SELECT 10 * A FROM mult

You can multiply by other field keys.

SELECT A * B * C FROM mult

Multiplication distributes across other operators

SELECT 10 * (A + B + C) FROM mult
SELECT 10 * (A - B - C) FROM mult
SELECT 10 * (A + B - C) FROM mult

Division

You can divide by a constant.

SELECT 10 / A FROM div

You can divide by other field keys.

SELECT A / B FROM div

Division distributes across other operators

SELECT 10 / (A + B + C) FROM mult

Operators with Functions

The use of mathematical operators inside of function calls is currently unsupported.

For example

SELECT 10 * mean(value) FROM cpu

will work, however

SELECT mean(10 * value) FROM cpu

will yield a parse error.

Unsupported Operators

Inequalities

Using any of =,!=,<,>,<=,>= will yield empty results for all types. See issue 3525.

Miscellaneous

Using any of %, ^ will yield a parse error. If you would like to see support for these operators open an issue.

Logical Operators are Unsupported

Using any of &,|,!|,NAND,XOR,NOR will yield parse error.

Additionally using AND, OR in the SELECT clause of a query will not behave as mathematical operators and simply yield empty results, as they are tokens in InfluxQL.