Terminology by Example
- Sample Data: number of butterflies and honeybees counted by two scientists (langstroth and perpetua) at two locations (location 1 and location 2)
name: census
| time | butterflies | honeybees | location | scientist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-08-18T00:00:00Z | 12 | 23 | 1 | langstroth |
| 2015-08-18T00:00:00Z | 1 | 30 | 1 | perpetua |
| 2015-08-18T00:06:00Z | 11 | 28 | 1 | langstroth |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
- census: measurement, acts as a container for tags, fields, and the time column
- time: timestamp field, all data in InfluxDB have that column using RFC3339 UTC format
- butterflies and honeybees are field keys - the metadata
- numbers between 1 and 30 are field values - the data
- field-keys and field-values form field set, e.g.:
butterflies = 12, honeybees = 23 - fields are required and are not indexed, queries on fields scan entire dataset
- location and scientist are optional tag keys
- location 1 and 2; scientists langstroth and perpetua are tag values
- tag-keys and tag-values from tag key-value pairs, e.g.:
location = 1, scientist = langstroth - tags are indexed and hence queries on tags are faster than queries on fields
