How can I convert a datetime object to milliseconds since epoch (unix time) in Python?

Question

I have a Python datetime object that I want to convert to unix time, or seconds/milliseconds since the 1970 epoch.

How do I do this?

Answer 1

Here is a function I made based on the answer above

def getDateToEpoch(myDateTime):
    res = (datetime.datetime(myDateTime.year,myDateTime.month,myDateTime.day,myDateTime.hour,myDateTime.minute,myDateTime.second) - datetime.datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds()
    return res

You can wrap the returned value like this : str(int(res)) To return it without a decimal value to be used as string or just int (without the str)

Answer 2

>>> import datetime
>>> # replace datetime.datetime.now() with your datetime object
>>> int(datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%s")) * 1000 
1312908481000

Or the help of the time module (and without date formatting):

>>> import datetime, time
>>> # replace datetime.datetime.now() with your datetime object
>>> time.mktime(datetime.datetime.now().timetuple()) * 1000
1312908681000.0

Answered with help from: http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_python/datesandtimes.html

Documentation:

• time.mktime
• datetime.timetuple

Answer 3

A bit of pandas code:

import pandas

def to_millis(dt):
    return int(pandas.to_datetime(dt).value / 1000000)

Answer 4

It appears to me that the simplest way to do this is

import datetime

epoch = datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(0)

def unix_time_millis(dt):
    return (dt - epoch).total_seconds() * 1000.0

Answer 5

In Python 3.3, added new method timestamp:

import datetime
seconds_since_epoch = datetime.datetime.now().timestamp()

Your question stated that you needed milliseconds, which you can get like this:

milliseconds_since_epoch = datetime.datetime.now().timestamp() * 1000

If you use timestamp on a naive datetime object, then it assumed that it is in the local timezone. Use timezone-aware datetime objects if this is not what you intend to happen.

Answer 6

Here's another form of a solution with normalization of your time object:

def to_unix_time(timestamp):
    epoch = datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(0) # start of epoch time
    my_time = datetime.datetime.strptime(timestamp, "%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S.%f") # plugin your time object
    delta = my_time - epoch
    return delta.total_seconds() * 1000.0