Epoch Converter Functions

Index

• VBScript / ASP routines
• JavaScript routines
• PHP routines
• Perl routines
• C routines
• MySQL queries

Find more epoch conversion routines (in other programming languages) on the homepage.

VBScript / ASP routines

The current Unix time:

DateDiff("s", "01/01/1970 00:00:00", Now())

date2epoch converts a VBScript date to an Unix timestamp:

function date2epoch(myDate)
date2epoch = DateDiff("s", "01/01/1970 00:00:00", myDate)
end function

Usage example:

date2epoch(Now())

epoch2date converts Unix timestamps back to VBScript dates:

function epoch2date(myEpoch)
epoch2date = DateAdd("s", myEpoch, "01/01/1970 00:00:00")
end function

JavaScript routines

Convert an epoch to human readable date:

var myDate = new Date( your epoch date *1000);
document.write(myDate.toGMTString()+"<br>"+myDate.toLocaleString());

The example above gives the following output (with epoch date 1):

You can also use getFullYear, getMonth, getDay etc. See documentation below.

Convert human readable dates to epoch:

var myDate = new Date("July 1, 1978 02:30:00"); // Your timezone!
var myEpoch = myDate.getTime()/1000.0;
document.write(myEpoch);

The example above gives the following output:

There are many ways to create dates in Javascript (for example with setFullYear, setMonth, setDay etc.).
For more information on the JavaScript Date object click here.

PHP routines

Convert a human readable date to epoch:

Use mktime:

// PHP 5.1+ 
date_default_timezone_set('UTC'); 
mktime ( $hour, $minute, $second, $month, $day, $year )

// before PHP 5.1
mktime ( $hour, $minute, $second, $month, $day, $year, $is_dst )
// $is_dst : 1 = daylight savings time (DST), 0 = no DST ,  -1 (default) = auto

If you are using PHP 5.1 or higher use date_default_timezone_set to set/overrule your timezone.
The PHP timezone handling takes care of daylight saving times (see a list of possible timezones).

time() returns the current epoch date. 

Convert a epoch to human readable date:

Use the date function.

Example: Create an epoch date for 1/1/2000, convert it back and display it.

echo date("M/d/Y", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2000));

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