---
title: Date/Time Parsers
pubDate: 2026-08-17T09:53:44.266Z
antora:
  editUrl: https://github.com/couchbase/docs-server/edit/release/7.2/modules/fts/pages/fts-date-time-parsers.adoc
  xref: xref:7.2@server:fts:fts-date-time-parsers.adoc[]
---

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# Date/Time Parsers

Custom _date/time parsers_ can be specified to allow matches to be made across date/time formats.

The Search Service expects dates to be in the format specified by RFC-3339 , which is a specific profile of ISO-8601\. Since Search queries need to specify dates in RFC-3339 format, the dates that are stored in Full Text Indexes also need to be in RFC-3339 format.

A date/time parser tells the Search Service ahead of time what the date/time layout of a field will be. If the Type of a child field is set to `datetime`, and the time layout(s) found in that field is not in RFC-3339 format, then you can specify a custom date/time parser that contains the layouts that the Search Service is to expect.

To add a custom date/time parser to a Full Text Index via the Couchbase Capella UI, the following permissions are required:

* You must have `Project View` privileges for the project that contains the cluster.
* You must have a database user associated with your organization user account. The database user must have Read/Write permissions for the bucket on which the index was created.
* Date/time parsers can be viewed and modified from the index's configuration page, under the **Index Settings** section.  
Any date/time parsers that are configured for the current index can be viewed by expanding the **Date/Time Parsers** panel. If no date/time parsers have been configured for the index, the **Date/Time Parsers** panel will be empty.

## [](#add-datetime-parsers)Add Date/Time Parsers

_Date/Time Parsers_ can be specified to allow matches to be made across different formats:

To add the date/time parser

Left click the **\+ Add Date/Time Parser**

![fts date time parser initial](_images/fts-date-time-parser-initial.png) 

The **Customer Date/Time Parser** dialog appears.

![fts custom date time parser dialog](_images/fts-custom-date-time-parser-dialog.png) 

Enter a suitable name for the custom parser into the **Name** field.

Left-click on the **\+ Add** button to successively add the _layouts_ for the parser in the interactive field below the **Layouts** field, by after each one:

This adds the layout to a list of layouts displayed in the **Layouts** field.

To remove any of these, select its name in the **Layouts** field, and left-click on the **Remove** button. When the list is complete, left-click on the **Save** button to save.

Documentation on using the _Go Programming Language_ to specify _layouts_ is provided on the page [Package time](http://golang.org/pkg/time/). In particular, see the section [func Parse](http://golang.org/pkg/time/#Parse).