Convert a Unix timestamp to time in JavaScript

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/847185

21-08-2019
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Question

I am storing time in a MySQL database as a Unix timestamp and that gets sent to some JavaScript code. How would I get just the time out of it?

For example, in HH/MM/SS format.

Solution

// Create a new JavaScript Date object based on the timestamp
// multiplied by 1000 so that the argument is in milliseconds, not seconds.
var date = new Date(unix_timestamp*1000);
// Hours part from the timestamp
var hours = date.getHours();
// Minutes part from the timestamp
var minutes = "0" + date.getMinutes();
// Seconds part from the timestamp
var seconds = "0" + date.getSeconds();

// Will display time in 10:30:23 format
var formattedTime = hours + ':' + minutes.substr(-2) + ':' + seconds.substr(-2);

For more information regarding the Date object, please refer to MDN or the ECMAScript 5 specification.

OTHER TIPS

function timeConverter(UNIX_timestamp){
  var a = new Date(UNIX_timestamp * 1000);
  var months = ['Jan','Feb','Mar','Apr','May','Jun','Jul','Aug','Sep','Oct','Nov','Dec'];
  var year = a.getFullYear();
  var month = months[a.getMonth()];
  var date = a.getDate();
  var hour = a.getHours();
  var min = a.getMinutes();
  var sec = a.getSeconds();
  var time = date + ' ' + month + ' ' + year + ' ' + hour + ':' + min + ':' + sec ;
  return time;
}
console.log(timeConverter(0));

JavaScript works in milliseconds, so you'll first have to convert the UNIX timestamp from seconds to milliseconds.

var date = new Date(UNIX_Timestamp * 1000);
// Manipulate JavaScript Date object here...

I'm partial to Jacob Wright's Date.format() library, which implements JavaScript date formatting in the style of PHP's date() function.

new Date(unix_timestamp * 1000).format('h:i:s')

Here is the shortest one-liner solution to format seconds as hh:mm:ss:

/**
 * Convert seconds to time string (hh:mm:ss).
 *
 * @param Number s
 *
 * @return String
 */
function time(s) {
    return new Date(s * 1e3).toISOString().slice(-13, -5);
}

console.log( time(12345) );  // "03:25:45"

Method Date.prototype.toISOString() returns time in simplified extended ISO 8601 format, which is always 24 or 27 characters long (i.e. YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ or ±YYYYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ respectively). The timezone is always zero UTC offset.

N.B.: This solution does not require any third-party libraries and is supported in all modern browsers and JavaScript engines.

Use:

var s = new Date(1504095567183).toLocaleDateString("en-US")
// expected output "8/30/2017"

and for time:

var s = new Date(1504095567183).toLocaleTimeString("en-US") 
// expected output "3:19:27 PM"`

see Date.prototype.toLocaleDateString()

I'd think about using a library like momentjs.com, that makes this really simple:

Based on a Unix timestamp:

var timestamp = moment.unix(1293683278);
console.log( timestamp.format("HH/mm/ss") );

Based on a MySQL date string:

var now = moment("2010-10-10 12:03:15");
console.log( now.format("HH/mm/ss") );

UNIX timestamp is number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970 (according to Wikipedia).

Argument of Date object in Javascript is number of miliseconds since 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970 (according to W3Schools Javascript documentation).

See code below for example:

    function tm(unix_tm) {
        var dt = new Date(unix_tm*1000);
        document.writeln(dt.getHours() + '/' + dt.getMinutes() + '/' + dt.getSeconds() + ' -- ' + dt + '<br>');

    }

tm(60);
tm(86400);

gives:

1/1/0 -- Thu Jan 01 1970 01:01:00 GMT+0100 (Central European Standard Time)
1/0/0 -- Fri Jan 02 1970 01:00:00 GMT+0100 (Central European Standard Time)

Using Moment.js, you can get time and date like this:

var dateTimeString = moment(1439198499).format("DD-MM-YYYY HH:mm:ss");

And you can get only time using this:

var timeString = moment(1439198499).format("HH:mm:ss");

The problem with the aforementioned solutions is, that if hour, minute or second, has only one digit (i.e. 0-9), the time would be wrong, e.g. it could be 2:3:9, but it should rather be 02:03:09.

According to this page it seems to be a better solution to use Date's "toLocaleTimeString" method.

Another way - from an ISO 8601 date.

var timestamp = 1293683278;
var date = new Date(timestamp*1000);
var iso = date.toISOString().match(/(\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2})/)
alert(iso[1]);

In moment you must use unix timestamp:

var dateTimeString = moment.unix(1466760005).format("DD-MM-YYYY HH:mm:ss");

shortest one-liner solution to format seconds as hh:mm:ss: variant:

console.log(new Date(1549312452 * 1000).toISOString().slice(0, 19).replace('T', ' '));
// "2019-02-04 20:34:12"

The modern solution that doesn't need a 40 KB library:

Intl.DateTimeFormat is the non-culturally imperialistic way to format a date/time.

// Setup once
var options = {
    //weekday: 'long',
    //month: 'short',
    //year: 'numeric',
    //day: 'numeric',
    hour: 'numeric',
    minute: 'numeric',
    second: 'numeric'
},
intlDate = new Intl.DateTimeFormat( undefined, options );

// Reusable formatter
var timeStamp = 1412743273;
console.log( intlDate.format( new Date( 1000 * timeStamp ) ) );

Based on @shomrat's answer, here is a snippet that automatically writes datetime like this (a bit similar to StackOverflow's date for answers: answered Nov 6 '16 at 11:51):

today, 11:23

yersterday, 11:23

or (if different but same year than today)

6 Nov, 11:23

or (if another year than today)

6 Nov 2016, 11:23

function timeConverter(t) {     
    var a = new Date(t * 1000);
    var today = new Date();
    var yesterday = new Date(Date.now() - 86400000);
    var months = ['Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec'];
    var year = a.getFullYear();
    var month = months[a.getMonth()];
    var date = a.getDate();
    var hour = a.getHours();
    var min = a.getMinutes();
    if (a.setHours(0,0,0,0) == today.setHours(0,0,0,0))
        return 'today, ' + hour + ':' + min;
    else if (a.setHours(0,0,0,0) == yesterday.setHours(0,0,0,0))
        return 'yesterday, ' + hour + ':' + min;
    else if (year == today.getFullYear())
        return date + ' ' + month + ', ' + hour + ':' + min;
    else
        return date + ' ' + month + ' ' + year + ', ' + hour + ':' + min;
}

function getTIMESTAMP() {
      var date = new Date();
      var year = date.getFullYear();
      var month = ("0"+(date.getMonth()+1)).substr(-2);
      var day = ("0"+date.getDate()).substr(-2);
      var hour = ("0"+date.getHours()).substr(-2);
      var minutes = ("0"+date.getMinutes()).substr(-2);
      var seconds = ("0"+date.getSeconds()).substr(-2);

      return year+"-"+month+"-"+day+" "+hour+":"+minutes+":"+seconds;
    }
//2016-01-14 02:40:01

My timestamp is being fetched from a PHP backend. I tried all the methods above and it did not work. I then came across a tutorial that worked:

var d =val.timestamp;
var date=new Date(+d); //NB: use + before variable name

console.log(d);
console.log(date.toDateString());
console.log(date.getFullYear());
console.log(date.getMinutes());
console.log(date.getSeconds());
console.log(date.getHours());
console.log(date.toLocaleTimeString());

the methods above will generate this results

1541415288860
Mon Nov 05 2018 
2018 
54 
48 
13
1:54:48 PM

There's a bunch of methods that work perfectly with timestamps. Cant list them all

Pay attention to the zero problem with some of the answers. For example, the timestamp 1439329773 would be mistakenly converted to 12/08/2015 0:49.

I would suggest on using the following to overcome this issue:

var timestamp = 1439329773; // replace your timestamp
var date = new Date(timestamp * 1000);
var formattedDate = ('0' + date.getDate()).slice(-2) + '/' + ('0' + (date.getMonth() + 1)).slice(-2) + '/' + date.getFullYear() + ' ' + ('0' + date.getHours()).slice(-2) + ':' + ('0' + date.getMinutes()).slice(-2);
console.log(formattedDate);

Now results in:

12/08/2015 00:49

// Format value as two digits 0 => 00, 1 => 01
function twoDigits(value) {
   if(value < 10) {
    return '0' + value;
   }
   return value;
}

var date = new Date(unix_timestamp*1000);
// display in format HH:MM:SS
var formattedTime = twoDigits(date.getHours()) 
      + ':' + twoDigits(date.getMinutes()) 
      + ':' + twoDigits(date.getSeconds());

See Date/Epoch Converter.

You need to ParseInt, otherwise it wouldn't work:

if (!window.a)
    window.a = new Date();

var mEpoch = parseInt(UNIX_timestamp);

if (mEpoch < 10000000000)
    mEpoch *= 1000;

------
a.setTime(mEpoch);
var year = a.getFullYear();
...
return time;

You can use the following function to convert your timestamp to HH:MM:SS format :

var convertTime = function(timestamp, separator) {
    var pad = function(input) {return input < 10 ? "0" + input : input;};
    var date = timestamp ? new Date(timestamp * 1000) : new Date();
    return [
        pad(date.getHours()),
        pad(date.getMinutes()),
        pad(date.getSeconds())
    ].join(typeof separator !== 'undefined' ?  separator : ':' );
}

Without passing a separator, it uses : as the (default) separator :

time = convertTime(1061351153); // --> OUTPUT = 05:45:53

If you want to use / as a separator, just pass it as the second parameter:

time = convertTime(920535115, '/'); // --> OUTPUT = 09/11/55

Demo

var convertTime = function(timestamp, separator) {
    var pad = function(input) {return input < 10 ? "0" + input : input;};
    var date = timestamp ? new Date(timestamp * 1000) : new Date();
    return [
        pad(date.getHours()),
        pad(date.getMinutes()),
        pad(date.getSeconds())
    ].join(typeof separator !== 'undefined' ?  separator : ':' );
}

document.body.innerHTML = '<pre>' + JSON.stringify({
    920535115 : convertTime(920535115, '/'),
    1061351153 : convertTime(1061351153, ':'),
    1435651350 : convertTime(1435651350, '-'),
    1487938926 : convertTime(1487938926),
    1555135551 : convertTime(1555135551, '.')
}, null, '\t') +  '</pre>';