cos

cos is useful in observability and log analysis when you need to encode time-of-day or other cyclic patterns as a continuous numeric feature. For example, you can combine cos and sin to represent hour-of-day as a pair of cyclic coordinates, which preserves the circular distance between hours for anomaly detection or grouping.

Usage#

Syntax#

cos(x)

Parameters#

Name	Type	Required	Description
`x`	real	Yes	The angle in radians.

Returns#

The cosine of x, a real number in the range [-1, 1].

Example#

Use cos to compute the cosine of an angle in radians.

Query

print result = cos(pi())

Run in Playground

Output

result
-1

sin: Returns the sine. Use sin and cos together to produce a two-dimensional cyclic encoding of angles.
tan: Returns the tangent. Use it when you need the ratio of sine to cosine.
acos: Returns the arc cosine. Use it as the inverse of cos.
pi: Returns the constant π. Use it to compute angle values in radians.
radians: Converts degrees to radians. Use it to prepare angle inputs before calling cos.

Other query languages#

Splunk SPL users

In Splunk SPL, cos() is available in the eval command with the same behavior: it takes an angle in radians and returns the cosine.

Splunk example

| eval cos_val = cos(angle_rad)

APL equivalent

['sample-http-logs']
| extend cos_val = cos(angle_rad)

ANSI SQL users

In ANSI SQL, COS() is a standard mathematical function with identical semantics.

SQL example

SELECT COS(angle_rad) AS cos_val FROM logs