Perl Epoch Converter Routines
How to convert epoch / UNIX timestamps to normal readable date/time using Perl.
- Getting current epoch time in Perl
- Converting from epoch to normal date in Perl
- Converting from normal date to epoch in Perl
- Comments
Getting current epoch time in Perl
Time returns an integer with the current epoch:
timeConverting from epoch to normal date in Perl
Using the internal localtime or gmtime functions, localtime and gmtime return an array:
my $time = time; # or any other epoch timestamp
my @months = ("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun", "Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec");
my ($sec, $min, $hour, $day,$month,$year) = (localtime($time))[0,1,2,3,4,5];
# You can use 'gmtime' for GMT/UTC dates instead of 'localtime'
print "Unix time ".$time." converts to ".$months[$month]." ".$day.", ".($year+1900);
print " ".$hour.":".$min.":".$sec."\n";But you can also use the scalar function to display your date with far less code:print scalar localtime(946684800);
returns Sat Jan 1 01:00:00 2000 (in my timezone).
For more advanced date manipulation, try using the DateTime module:
use DateTime;
$dt = DateTime->from_epoch( epoch => $epoch );
$year = $dt->year;
$month = $dt->month; # 1-12 - you can also use '$dt->mon'
$day = $dt->day; # 1-31 - also 'day_of_month', 'mday'
$dow = $dt->day_of_week; # 1-7 (Monday is 1) - also 'dow', 'wday'
$hour = $dt->hour; # 0-23
$minute = $dt->minute; # 0-59 - also 'min'
$second = $dt->second; # 0-61 (leap seconds!) - also 'sec'
$doy = $dt->day_of_year; # 1-366 (leap years) - also 'doy'
$doq = $dt->day_of_quarter; # 1.. - also 'doq'
$qtr = $dt->quarter; # 1-4
$ymd = $dt->ymd; # 1974-11-30
$ymd = $dt->ymd('/'); # 1974/11/30 - also 'date'
$hms = $dt->hms; # 13:30:00
$hms = $dt->hms('|'); # 13|30|00 - also 'time'Converting from normal date to epoch in Perl
Using the Time::Local module:
use Time::Local;
my $time = timelocal($sec,$min,$hours,$day,$month,$year);
# replace 'timelocal' with 'timegm' if your input date is GMT/UTC
Using the DateTime module:
use DateTime;
$dt = DateTime->new( year => 1974, month => 11, day => 30, hour => 13, minute => 30,
second => 0, nanosecond => 500000000, time_zone => 'Asia/Taipei' );
$epoch_time = $dt->epoch;Find more detailed information on CPAN: Time::Local, DateTime. You can also use Date::Manip if you need more advanced date manipulation routines.
Using the Date::Parse module (thanks to ericblue76):
use Date::Parse;
print str2time("02/25/2011 11:50AM");
The Perl Cookbook, Second Edition gives detailed information on manipulating dates and times in chapter 3 (pages 90-110).