Index

Use tools like the {{% show-in "cloud-dedicated,clustered" %}}influxctl{{% /show-in %}}{{% show-in "cloud-serverless" %}}influx{{% /show-in %}}{{% show-in "core,enterprise" %}}influxdb3{{% /show-in %}} CLI, Telegraf, and InfluxDB client libraries to write time series data to {{< product-name >}}. line protocol is the text-based format used to write data to InfluxDB.

[!Tip] Tools are available to convert other formats (for example—CSV) to line protocol.

{{% show-in "core,enterprise" %}}

• Choose the write endpoint for your workload
  • Timestamp precision across write APIs {{% /show-in %}}
• Line protocol
  • Line protocol elements
• Write data to InfluxDB {{< children type="anchored-list" >}}

{{% show-in "core,enterprise" %}}

[!Tip]

Choose the write endpoint for your workload

When creating new write workloads, use the InfluxDB HTTP API /api/v3/write_lp endpoint and client libraries.

When bringing existing v1 write workloads, use the {{% product-name %}} HTTP API /write endpoint.

When bringing existing v2 write workloads, use the {{% product-name %}} HTTP API /api/v2/write endpoint.

For Telegraf, use the InfluxDB v1.x outputs.influxdb or v2.x outputs.influxdb_v2 output plugins. See how to use Telegraf to write data.

Timestamp precision across write APIs

{{% product-name %}} provides multiple write endpoints for compatibility with different InfluxDB versions. The following table compares timestamp precision support across v1, v2, and v3 write APIs:

Precision	v1 (/write)	v2 (/api/v2/write)	v3 (/api/v3/write_lp)
Auto detection	❌ No	❌ No	✅ auto (default)
Seconds	✅ s	✅ s	✅ second
Milliseconds	✅ ms	✅ ms	✅ millisecond
Microseconds	✅ u or µ	✅ us	✅ microsecond
Nanoseconds	✅ ns	✅ ns	✅ nanosecond
Minutes	✅ m	❌ No	❌ No
Hours	✅ h	❌ No	❌ No
Default	Nanosecond	Nanosecond	Auto (guessed)

• All write endpoints accept timestamps in line protocol format.
• {{% product-name %}} multiplies timestamps by the appropriate precision value to convert them to nanoseconds for internal storage.
• All timestamps are stored internally as nanoseconds regardless of the precision specified when writing.

{{% /show-in %}}

{{% hide-in "core,enterprise" %}}

[!Note]

Choose the write endpoint for your workload

When bringing existing v1 write workloads, use the {{% product-name %}} HTTP API /write endpoint. When creating new write workloads, use the HTTP API /api/v2/write endpoint. {{% /hide-in %}}

Line protocol

All data written to InfluxDB is written using line protocol, a text-based format that lets you provide the necessary information to write a data point to InfluxDB.

Line protocol elements

In InfluxDB, a point contains a table name, one or more fields, a timestamp, and optional tags that provide metadata about the observation.

Each line of line protocol contains the following elements:

{{< req type="key" >}}

• {{< req "*" >}} table: A string that identifies the table to store the data in.
• tag set: Comma-delimited list of key value pairs, each representing a tag. Tag keys and values are unquoted strings. Spaces, commas, and equal characters must be escaped.
• {{< req "*" >}} field set: Comma-delimited list of key value pairs, each representing a field. Field keys are unquoted strings. Spaces and commas must be escaped. Field values can be strings (quoted), floats, integers, unsigned integers, or booleans.
• timestamp: Unix timestamp associated with the data. InfluxDB supports up to nanosecond precision. If the precision of the timestamp is not in nanoseconds, you must specify the precision when writing the data to InfluxDB.

Line protocol element parsing

• table: Everything before the first unescaped comma before the first whitespace.
• tag set: Key-value pairs between the first unescaped comma and the first unescaped whitespace.
• field set: Key-value pairs between the first and second unescaped whitespaces.
• timestamp: Integer value after the second unescaped whitespace.
• Lines are separated by the newline character (\n). Line protocol is whitespace sensitive.

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{{< influxdb/line-protocol version="v3" >}}

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For schema design recommendations, see InfluxDB schema design.

Write data to InfluxDB

{{< children >}}