Unix Timestamps Explained: How Epoch Time Works and How to Convert It

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A Unix timestamp is a numeric value representing the number of seconds elapsed since January 1, 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC, known as the Unix epoch. Developers widely use Unix timestamps in APIs, databases, logs, and authentication systems because they are simple to store, compare, and transmit across platforms. One of the most frequent mistakes is confusing second-based timestamps with millisecond-based ones, which can cause applications to display completely incorrect dates. JavaScript, Python, and Linux each offer built-in methods to retrieve and convert Unix timestamps — such as Date.now() in JavaScript, the time module in Python, and the date +%s command on Linux. When working with any system that uses timestamps, it is important to verify whether the expected unit is seconds, milliseconds, or another format, and to document this clearly.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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