Epoch

A common requirement in programs is getting the number of seconds, milliseconds, or nanoseconds since the Unix epoch. Here’s how to do it in Go.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
)

func main() {

    // Use time.Now with Unix, UnixMilli or UnixNano 
    // to get elapsed time since the Unix epoch in seconds, milliseconds or nanoseconds, respectively.
    now := time.Now()
    fmt.Println(now)

    fmt.Println(now.Unix())
    fmt.Println(now.UnixMilli())
    fmt.Println(now.UnixNano())

    // You can also convert integer seconds or nanoseconds
    // since the epoch into the corresponding time.
    fmt.Println(time.Unix(now.Unix(), 0))
    fmt.Println(time.Unix(0, now.UnixNano()))
}

$ go run epoch.go 
2012-10-31 16:13:58.292387 +0000 UTC
1351700038
1351700038292
1351700038292387000
2012-10-31 16:13:58 +0000 UTC
2012-10-31 16:13:58.292387 +0000 UTC

Next we’ll look at another time-related task: time parsing and formatting.