Convert date time string to epoch in Bash

Question

The date time string is in the following format  06 12 2012 07 21 22  How can I convert it to UNIX timestamp or epoch

User · Answer

get curr date            get unix time     DATE   date   s      echo  DATE CURR     DATE    conv utime hread            convert unix time to human readable format     DATE HREAD   date -d   DATE   Y m d  H M S      echo  DATE HREAD              DATE HREAD

User · Answer

For Linux Run this command  date -d  06 12 2012 07 21 22     s    For mac OSX run this command  date -j -u -f   a  b  d  T  Z  Y   Tue Sep 28 19 35 15 EDT 2010     s

User · Answer

A lot of these answers overly complicated and also missing how to use variables  This is how you would do it more simply on standard Linux system  as previously mentioned the date command would have to be adjusted for Mac Users     Sample script      bin bash orig  Apr 28 07 50 01  epoch   date -d    orig      s   epoch to date   date -d   epoch   Y m d  H M S       echo  RESULTS   echo  original    orig  echo  epoch conv    epoch  echo  epoch to human readable time stamp    epoch to date    Results in    RESULTS  original   Apr 28 07 50 01 epoch conv   1524916201  epoch to human readable time stamp   20180428 075001   Or as a function      -- Converts from human to epoch or epoch to human  specifically  Apr 28 07 50 01  human       typeset now   date    s        typeset now human date   convert cron time  human    now    function convert cron time         case    1     in         epoch                human to epoch  eg   Apr 28 07 50 01  to 1524916201              echo   date -d    2      s                          human                epoch to human  eg  1524916201 to  Apr 28 07 50 01               echo   date -d     2      b  d  H  M  S                      esac

User · Answer

Just be sure what timezone you want to use   datetime  06 12 2012 07 21 22    Most popular use takes machine timezone   date -d   datetime     s   depends on local timezone  my output    1339456882    But in case you intentionally want to pass UTC datetime and you want proper timezone you need to add -u flag  Otherwise you convert it from your local timezone   date -u -d   datetime     s   general output    1339485682

User · Answer

Efficient solution using date as background dedicated process  In order to make this kind of translation a lot quicker     Intro  In this post  you will find    a Quick Demo  following this  some Explanations  a Function useable for many Un x tools  bc  rot13  sed        Quick Demo  fifo  HOME  fifoDate-   mkfifo  fifo exec 5 gt   gt  exec stdbuf -o0 date -f -   s  gt  fifo 2 gt  amp 1  echo now 1 gt  amp 5 exec 6 lt   fifo rm  fifo read -t 1 -u 6 now echo  now   This must output current UNIXTIME  From there  you could compare  time for i in  1  5000  do echo  gt  amp 5  now    read -t 1 -u6 ans done real    0m0 298s user    0m0 132s sys     0m0 096s   and   time for i in  1  5000  do ans   date   s -d  now   done  real    0m6 826s user    0m0 256s sys     0m1 364s   From more than 6 seconds to less than a half second   on my host    You could check echo  ans  replace  now  by  2019-25-12 20 10 00  and so on     Optionaly  you could  once requirement of date subprocess ended   exec 5 gt  amp -   exec 6 lt  amp -   Original post  detailed explanation   Instead of running 1 fork by date to convert  run date just 1 time and do all convertion with same process  this could become a lot quicker     date -f -   s  lt  lt eof Apr 17  2014 May 21  2012 Mar  8 00 07 Feb 11 00 09 eof 1397685600 1337551200 1520464020 1518304140   Sample   start1   LANG C ps ho lstart 1  start2   LANG C ps ho lstart     dirchg   LANG C date -r    read -p  A date    userdate   read start1   read start2   read dirchg   read userdate     lt   lt      date -f -   s  lt  lt  lt   start1    n   start2    n   dirchg    n   userdate      Then now have a look   declare -p start1 start2 dirchg userdate       may answer something like    declare -- start1  1518549549  declare -- start2  1520183716  declare -- dirchg  1520601919  declare -- userdate  1397685600     This was done in one execution   Using long running subprocess  We just need one fifo   mkfifo  tmp myDateFifo exec 7 gt   gt  exec stdbuf -o0  bin date -f -   s  gt  tmp myDateFifo  exec 8 lt  tmp myDateFifo rm  tmp myDateFifo    Note  As process is running and all descriptors are opened  we could safely remove fifo s filesystem entry    Then now   LANG C ps ho lstart 1     gt  amp 7 read -u 8 start1 read -u 8 start2 LANG C date -r    gt  amp 7 read -u 8 dirchg  read -p  Some date    userdate echo  gt  amp 7  userdate read -u 8 userdate   We could buid a little function   mydate         local var  1      shift      echo  gt  amp 7        read -u 8  var    mydate start1   LANG C ps ho lstart 1  echo  start1   Or use my newConnector function  With functions for connecting MySQL MariaDB  PostgreSQL and SQLite     You may find them in different version on GitHub  or on my site  download or show   wget https   raw githubusercontent com F-Hauri Connector-bash master shell connector bash    shell connector bash  newConnector  bin date  -f -   s   0 0  myDate  2018-1-1 12 00  test echo  test 1514804400   Nota  On GitHub  functions and test are separated files  On my site test are run simply if this script is not sourced     Exit here if script is sourced     0      BASH SOURCE         true return 0

User · Answer

What you re looking for is date --date  06 12 2012 07 21 22     s   Keep in mind that this assumes you re using GNU coreutils  as both --date and the  s format string are GNU extensions  POSIX doesn t specify either of those  so there is no portable way of making such conversion even on POSIX compliant systems   Consult the appropriate manual page for other versions of date   Note  bash --date and -d option expects the date in US or ISO8601 format  i e  mm dd yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd  not in UK  EU  or any other format

[bash] Convert date time string to epoch in Bash

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