Sometimes programmers have to change the time to get UNIX timestamp from a date string in JavaScript as it is beneficial when using across different systems. It can also be represented as an integer, which makes it quite easier to use in a different system. Professional programmers do this in seconds, but beginners have to learn it from the scratch. And here, we are going to shed light on the conversion to help them out.

Let’s check out how to get UNIX timestamp from a date string in JavaScript

How To Get UNIX Timestamp from A Date String in JavaScript

The time in dates is user-friendly, but as we have discussed, sometimes it is beneficial to convert it into the UNIX timestamp. To get UNIX timestamp from a date string in JavaScript, we need to

• Use the Date() constructor by creating a Date object
• Use getTime() method
• Divide the result in seconds by 1000 to get UNIX timestamp

Using Date Constructor with getTime() Method

With the use of the Date constructor to create the date Object, we can convert the date into the UNIX timestamp. The getTime() method is also used, which works just as its name suggests. Take a look at the example to understand it in a simpler way

const dateString1 = '2022-08-22';
const date1 = new Date(dateString1);
console.log(date1); // Mon Aug 22 2022

const timestampInMs = date1.getTime();
const unixTimestamp = Math.floor(date1.getTime() / 1000);
console.log(unixTimestamp);

Output

1661126400

In this code, we also applied the formula for dividing milliseconds to convert it into seconds, and then to UNIX timestamp.

In case we have a date string, we can just pass it to the date constructor to get the date object. The string should be formatted correctly to avoid getting an invalid date at the time of creating the date object before passing it to the date constructor.

The Math.floor function makes the number round down if it has a decimal or else it returns the number as it is.

console.log(Math.floor(8.99)); // 8
console.log(Math.floor(5.01)); // 5
console.log(Math.floor(5)); //  5

it makes sure, you don’t get a decimal when converting to seconds.

Using MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss Format

When you have a month, day, year, hour, minute, and second, and you want to get the UNIX timestamp, you can use this format.  With this, you can get each value to pass as a parameter to the Date constructor. Have a look at the example

const dateString2 = '03/08/2022 14:45:05';
const [dateValues, timeValues] = dateString2.split(' ');
console.log(dateValues); // "03/28/2022"
console.log(timeValues); // "14:45:05"

const [month, day, year] = dateValues.split('/');
const [hours, minutes, seconds] = timeValues.split(':');
const date2 = new Date(+year, month - 1, +day, +hours, +minutes, +seconds);
console.log(date2); // Tue Mar 08 2022 14:45:05

const timestampInMs = date2.getTime();
const timestampInSeconds = Math.floor(date2.getTime() / 1000);

Here, we split the time and date string to get the time and date components as a separate string.

Conclusion

And that’s how you get UNIX timestamp from a date in JavaScript. I wish you accurate coding! Don’t forget to comment below if you find any issues while coding!