[ios] How to convert NSDate into unix timestamp iphone sdk?

How to convert an NSDate into Unix timestamp? I've read many posts which do the reverse. But I'm not finding anything related to my question.

A Unix timestamp is the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC January 1, 1970. It's represented by the type time_t, which is usually a signed 32-bit integer type (long or int).

iOS provides -(NSTimeInterval)timeIntervalSince1970 for NSDate objects which returns the number of seconds since 00:00:00 GMT January 1, 1970. NSTimeInterval is a double floating point type so you get the seconds and fractions of a second.

Since they both have the same reference (midnight 1Jan1970 UTC) and are both in seconds the conversion is easy, convert the NSTimeInterval to a time_t, rounding or truncating depending on your needs:

time_t unixTime = (time_t) [[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970];

 [NSString stringWithFormat: @"first unixtime is %ld",message,(long)[[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970]];

 [NSString stringWithFormat: @"second unixtime is %ld",message,[[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970]];

 [NSString stringWithFormat: @"third unixtime is %.0f",message,[[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970]]; 

first unixtime 1532278070

second unixtime 1532278070.461380

third unixtime 1532278070

Swift

Updated for Swift 3

// current date and time
let someDate = Date()

// time interval since 1970
let myTimeStamp = someDate.timeIntervalSince1970

Notes

• timeIntervalSince1970 returns TimeInterval, which is a typealias for Double.

• If you wanted to go the other way you could do the following:

    let myDate = Date(timeIntervalSince1970: myTimeStamp)
  

My preferred way is simply:

NSDate.date.timeIntervalSince1970;

As per @kexik's suggestion using the UNIX time function as below :

  time_t result = time(NULL);
  NSLog([NSString stringWithFormat:@"The current Unix epoch time is %d",(int)result]);

.As per my experience - don't use timeIntervalSince1970 , it gives epoch timestamp - number of seconds you are behind GMT.

There used to be a bug with [[NSDate date]timeIntervalSince1970] , it used to add/subtract time based on the timezone of the phone but it seems to be resolved now.

- (void)GetCurrentTimeStamp
    {
        NSDateFormatter *objDateformat = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
        [objDateformat setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];
        NSString    *strTime = [objDateformat stringFromDate:[NSDate date]];
        NSString    *strUTCTime = [self GetUTCDateTimeFromLocalTime:strTime];//You can pass your date but be carefull about your date format of NSDateFormatter.
        NSDate *objUTCDate  = [objDateformat dateFromString:strUTCTime];
        long long milliseconds = (long long)([objUTCDate timeIntervalSince1970] * 1000.0);

        NSString *strTimeStamp = [Nsstring stringwithformat:@"%lld",milliseconds];
        NSLog(@"The Timestamp is = %@",strTimestamp);
    }

 - (NSString *) GetUTCDateTimeFromLocalTime:(NSString *)IN_strLocalTime
    {
        NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
        [dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd"];
        NSDate  *objDate    = [dateFormatter dateFromString:IN_strLocalTime];
        [dateFormatter setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneWithAbbreviation:@"UTC"]];
        NSString *strDateTime   = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:objDate];
        return strDateTime;
    }

NOTE :- The Timestamp must be in UTC Zone, So I convert our local Time to UTC Time.

You can create a unix timestamp date from a date this way:

NSTimeInterval timestamp = [[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970];

If you need time stamp as a string.

time_t result = time(NULL);                
NSString *timeStampString = [@(result) stringValue];

If you want to store these time in a database or send it over the server...best is to use Unix timestamps. Here's a little snippet to get that:

+ (NSTimeInterval)getUTCFormateDate{

    NSDateComponents *comps = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] 
                               components:NSDayCalendarUnit | NSYearCalendarUnit | NSMonthCalendarUnit 
                               fromDate:[NSDate date]];
    [comps setHour:0];
    [comps setMinute:0];    
    [comps setSecond:[[NSTimeZone systemTimeZone] secondsFromGMT]];

    return [[[NSCalendar currentCalendar] dateFromComponents:comps] timeIntervalSince1970];  
}