How do you convert epoch time in C#?

Question

How do you convert Unix epoch time into real time in C#? (Epoch beginning 1/1/1970)

Answer 1

If you want better performance you can use this version.

public const long UnixEpochTicks = 621355968000000000;
public const long TicksPerMillisecond = 10000;
public const long TicksPerSecond = TicksPerMillisecond * 1000;

//[MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.AggressiveInlining)]
public static DateTime FromUnixTimestamp(this long unixTime)
{
    return new DateTime(UnixEpochTicks + unixTime * TicksPerSecond);
}

From a quick benchmark (BenchmarkDotNet) under net471 I get this number:

        Method |     Mean |     Error |    StdDev | Scaled |
-------------- |---------:|----------:|----------:|-------:|
         LukeH | 5.897 ns | 0.0897 ns | 0.0795 ns |   1.00 |
      MyCustom | 3.176 ns | 0.0573 ns | 0.0536 ns |   0.54 |

2x faster against LukeH's version (if the performance mater)

This is similar to how DateTime internally work.

Answer 2

If you are not using 4.6, this may help Source: System.IdentityModel.Tokens

    /// <summary>
    /// DateTime as UTV for UnixEpoch
    /// </summary>
    public static readonly DateTime UnixEpoch = new DateTime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, DateTimeKind.Utc);

    /// <summary>
    /// Per JWT spec:
    /// Gets the number of seconds from 1970-01-01T0:0:0Z as measured in UTC until the desired date/time.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="datetime">The DateTime to convert to seconds.</param>
    /// <remarks>if dateTimeUtc less than UnixEpoch, return 0</remarks>
    /// <returns>the number of seconds since Unix Epoch.</returns>
    public static long GetIntDate(DateTime datetime)
    {
        DateTime dateTimeUtc = datetime;
        if (datetime.Kind != DateTimeKind.Utc)
        {
            dateTimeUtc = datetime.ToUniversalTime();
        }

        if (dateTimeUtc.ToUniversalTime() <= UnixEpoch)
        {
            return 0;
        }

        return (long)(dateTimeUtc - UnixEpoch).TotalSeconds;
    }    

Answer 3

currently you can simply use

DateTimeOffset.UtcNow.ToUnixTimeMilliseconds()

it will be returned as a 64-bits long

Answer 4

Here is my solution:

public long GetTime()
{
    DateTime dtCurTime = DateTime.Now.ToUniversalTime();

    DateTime dtEpochStartTime = Convert.ToDateTime("1/1/1970 0:00:00 AM");

    TimeSpan ts = dtCurTime.Subtract(dtEpochStartTime);

    double epochtime;

    epochtime = ((((((ts.Days * 24) + ts.Hours) * 60) + ts.Minutes) * 60) + ts.Seconds);   

    return Convert.ToInt64(epochtime);
}

Answer 5

Use the method DateTimeOffset.ToUnixTimeMilliseconds() It returns the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z.

This is only supported with Framework 4.6 or higher

var EPOCH = DateTimeOffset.UtcNow.ToUnixTimeMilliseconds();

It's well documented here DateTimeOffset.ToUnixTimeMilliseconds

The other way out is to use the following

long EPOCH = DateTime.UtcNow.Ticks - new DateTime(1970, 1, 1,0,0,0,0).Ticks;

To get the EPOCH with seconds only you may use

 var Epoch = (int)(DateTime.UtcNow - new DateTime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, DateTimeKind.Utc)).TotalSeconds;

and convert the Epoch to DateTime with the following method

private DateTime Epoch2UTCNow(int epoch) 
{
    return new DateTime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, DateTimeKind.Utc).AddSeconds(epoch); 
}

Answer 6

The latest version of .Net (v4.6) just added built-in support for Unix time conversions. That includes both to and from Unix time represented by either seconds or milliseconds.

• Unix time in seconds to DateTimeOffset:

DateTimeOffset dateTimeOffset = DateTimeOffset.FromUnixTimeSeconds(1000);

• DateTimeOffset to Unix time in seconds:

long unixTimeStampInSeconds = dateTimeOffset.ToUnixTimeSeconds();

• Unix time in milliseconds to DateTimeOffset:

DateTimeOffset dateTimeOffset = DateTimeOffset.FromUnixTimeMilliseconds(1000000);

• DateTimeOffset to Unix time in milliseconds:

long unixTimeStampInMilliseconds= dateTimeOffset.ToUnixTimeMilliseconds();

---

Note: These methods convert to and from DateTimeOffset. To get a DateTime representation simply use the DateTimeOffset.DateTime property:

DateTime dateTime = dateTimeOffset.UtcDateTime;