How do you get a timestamp in JavaScript?

4309

votes

Something similar to Unix's timestamp, that is a single number that represents the current time and date. Either as a number or a string.

javascript

5315

votes

Short & Snazzy:

+ new Date()

A unary operator like plus triggers the valueOf method in the Date object and it returns the timestamp (without any alteration).

Details:

On almost all current browsers you can use Date.now() to get the UTC timestamp in milliseconds; a notable exception to this is IE8 and earlier (see compatibility table).

You can easily make a shim for this, though:

if (!Date.now) {
    Date.now = function() { return new Date().getTime(); }
}

To get the timestamp in seconds, you can use:

Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000)

Or alternatively you could use:

Date.now() / 1000 | 0

Which should be slightly faster, but also less readable.
(also see this answer or this with further explaination to bitwise operators).

I would recommend using Date.now() (with compatibility shim). It's slightly better because it's shorter & doesn't create a new Date object. However, if you don't want a shim & maximum compatibility, you could use the "old" method to get the timestamp in milliseconds:

new Date().getTime()

Which you can then convert to seconds like this:

Math.round(new Date().getTime()/1000)

And you can also use the valueOf method which we showed above:

new Date().valueOf()

Timestamp in Milliseconds

var timeStampInMs = window.performance && window.performance.now && window.performance.timing && window.performance.timing.navigationStart ? window.performance.now() + window.performance.timing.navigationStart : Date.now();

console.log(timeStampInMs, Date.now());

566

votes

I like this, because it is small:

+new Date

I also like this, because it is just as short and is compatible with modern browsers, and over 500 people voted that it is better:

Date.now()

294

votes

JavaScript works with the number of milliseconds since the epoch whereas most other languages work with the seconds. You could work with milliseconds but as soon as you pass a value to say PHP, the PHP native functions will probably fail. So to be sure I always use the seconds, not milliseconds.

This will give you a Unix timestamp (in seconds):

var unix = Math.round(+new Date()/1000);

This will give you the milliseconds since the epoch (not Unix timestamp):

var milliseconds = new Date().getTime();

154

votes

var time = Date.now || function() {
  return +new Date;
};

time();

144

votes

I provide multiple solutions with descriptions in this answer. Feel free to ask questions if anything is unclear

Quick and dirty solution:

Date.now() /1000 |0

Warning: it might break in 2038 and return negative numbers if you do the |0 magic. Use Math.floor() instead by that time

Math.floor() solution:

Math.floor(Date.now() /1000);

Some nerdy alternative by Derek 朕會功夫 taken from the comments below this answer:

new Date/1e3|0

Polyfill to get Date.now() working:

To get it working in IE you could do this (Polyfill from MDN):

if (!Date.now) {
    Date.now = function now() {
        return new Date().getTime();
    };
}

If you do not care about the year / day of week / daylight saving time you need to remember this for dates after 2038:

Bitwise operations will cause usage of 32 Bit Integers instead of 64 Bit Floating Point.

You will need to properly use it as:

Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000)

If you just want to know the relative time from the point of when the code was run through first you could use something like this:

const relativeTime = (() => {
    const start = Date.now();
    return () => Date.now() - start;
})();

In case you are using jQuery you could use $.now() as described in jQuery's Docs which makes the polyfill obsolete since $.now() internally does the same thing: (new Date).getTime()

If you are just happy about jQuery's version, consider upvoting this answer since I did not find it myself.

Now a tiny explaination of what |0 does:

By providing |, you tell the interpreter to do a binary OR operation.
Bit operations require absolute numbers which turns the decimal result from Date.now() / 1000 into an integer.

During that conversion, decimals are removed, resulting in a similar result to what using Math.floor() would output.

Be warned though: it will convert a 64 bit double to a 32 bit integer.
This will result in information loss when dealing with huge numbers.
Timestamps will break after 2038 due to 32 bit integer overflow unless Javascript moves to 64 Bit Integers in Strict Mode.

For further information about Date.now follow this link: Date.now() @ MDN

93

votes

var timestamp = Number(new Date()); // current time as number

60

votes

jQuery provides its own method to get the timestamp:

var timestamp = $.now();

^{(besides it just implements (new Date).getTime() expression)}

REF: http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.now/

53

votes

In addition to the other options, if you want a dateformat ISO, you can get it directly

console.log(new Date().toISOString());

45

votes

console.log(new Date().valueOf()); // returns the number of milliseconds since the epoch

45

votes

Date, a native object in JavaScript is the way we get all data about time.

Just be careful in JavaScript the timestamp depends on the client computer set, so it's not 100% accurate timestamp. To get the best result, you need to get the timestamp from the server-side.

Anyway, my preferred way is using vanilla. This is a common way of doing it in JavaScript:

Date.now(); //return 1495255666921

In MDN it's mentioned as below:

The Date.now() method returns the number of milliseconds elapsed since 1 January 1970 00:00:00 UTC.
Because now() is a static method of Date, you always use it as Date.now().

If you using a version below ES5, Date.now(); not works and you need to use:

new Date().getTime();

43

votes

Just to add up, here's a function to return a timestamp string in Javascript. Example: 15:06:38 PM

function displayTime() {
    var str = "";

    var currentTime = new Date()
    var hours = currentTime.getHours()
    var minutes = currentTime.getMinutes()
    var seconds = currentTime.getSeconds()

    if (minutes < 10) {
        minutes = "0" + minutes
    }
    if (seconds < 10) {
        seconds = "0" + seconds
    }
    str += hours + ":" + minutes + ":" + seconds + " ";
    if(hours > 11){
        str += "PM"
    } else {
        str += "AM"
    }
    return str;
}

38

votes

Performance

Today - 2020.04.23 I perform tests for chosen solutions. I tested on MacOs High Sierra 10.13.6 on Chrome 81.0, Safari 13.1, Firefox 75.0

Conclusions

Solution Date.now() (E) is fastest on Chrome and Safari and second fast on Firefox and this is probably best choice for fast cross-browser solution
Solution performance.now() (G), what is surprising, is more than 100x faster than other solutions on Firefox but slowest on Chrome
Solutions C,D,F are quite slow on all browsers

Details

Results for chrome

You can perform test on your machine HERE

Code used in tests is presented in below snippet

function A() {
  return new Date().getTime();
}

function B() {
  return new Date().valueOf();
}

function C() {
  return +new Date();
}

function D() {
  return new Date()*1;
}

function E() {
  return Date.now();
}

function F() {
  return Number(new Date());
}

function G() {
  // this solution returns time counted from loading the page.
  // (and on Chrome it gives better precission)
  return performance.now(); 
}



// TEST

log = (n,f) => console.log(`${n} : ${f()}`);

log('A',A);
log('B',B);
log('C',C);
log('D',D);
log('E',E);
log('F',F);
log('G',G);

This snippet only presents code used in external benchmark

31

votes

One I haven't seen yet

Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000); // current time in seconds

Another one I haven't seen yet is

var _ = require('lodash'); // from here https://lodash.com/docs#now
_.now();

28

votes

The Date.getTime() method can be used with a little tweak:

The value returned by the getTime method is the number of milliseconds since 1 January 1970 00:00:00 UTC.

Divide the result by 1000 to get the Unix timestamp, floor if necessary:

(new Date).getTime() / 1000

^{The Date.valueOf() method is functionally equivalent to Date.getTime(), which makes it possible to use arithmetic operators on date object to achieve identical results. In my opinion, this approach affects readability.}

26

votes

The code Math.floor(new Date().getTime() / 1000) can be shortened to new Date / 1E3 | 0.

Consider to skip direct getTime() invocation and use | 0 as a replacement for Math.floor() function. It's also good to remember 1E3 is a shorter equivalent for 1000 (uppercase E is preferred than lowercase to indicate 1E3 as a constant).

As a result you get the following:

var ts = new Date / 1E3 | 0;

console.log(ts);

22

votes

For a timestamp with microsecond resolution, there's performance.now:

function time() { 
  return performance.now() + performance.timing.navigationStart;
}

This could for example yield 1436140826653.139, while Date.now only gives 1436140826653.

22

votes

I highly recommend using moment.js. To get the number of milliseconds since UNIX epoch, do

moment().valueOf()

To get the number of seconds since UNIX epoch, do

moment().unix()

You can also convert times like so:

moment('2015-07-12 14:59:23', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss').valueOf()

I do that all the time. No pun intended.

To use moment.js in the browser:

<script src="moment.js"></script>
<script>
    moment().valueOf();
</script>

For more details, including other ways of installing and using MomentJS, see their docs

21

votes

You can only use

    var timestamp = new Date().getTime();
    console.log(timestamp);

to get the current timestamp. No need to do anything extra.

20

votes

Here is a simple function to generate timestamp in the format: mm/dd/yy hh:mi:ss

function getTimeStamp() {
    var now = new Date();
    return ((now.getMonth() + 1) + '/' +
            (now.getDate()) + '/' +
             now.getFullYear() + " " +
             now.getHours() + ':' +
             ((now.getMinutes() < 10)
                 ? ("0" + now.getMinutes())
                 : (now.getMinutes())) + ':' +
             ((now.getSeconds() < 10)
                 ? ("0" + now.getSeconds())
                 : (now.getSeconds())));
}

20

votes

// The Current Unix Timestamp
// 1443534720 seconds since Jan 01 1970. (UTC)

// seconds
console.log(Math.floor(new Date().valueOf() / 1000)); // 1443534720
console.log(Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000)); // 1443534720
console.log(Math.floor(new Date().getTime() / 1000)); // 1443534720

// milliseconds
console.log(Math.floor(new Date().valueOf())); // 1443534720087
console.log(Math.floor(Date.now())); // 1443534720087
console.log(Math.floor(new Date().getTime())); // 1443534720087

// jQuery
// seconds
console.log(Math.floor($.now() / 1000)); // 1443534720
// milliseconds
console.log($.now()); // 1443534720087

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

16

votes

Any browsers not supported Date.now, you can use this for get current date time:

currentTime = Date.now() || +new Date()

16

votes

If it is for logging purposes, you can use ISOString

new Date().toISOString()

"2019-05-18T20:02:36.694Z"

14

votes

This one has a solution : which converts unixtime stamp to tim in js try this

var a = new Date(UNIX_timestamp*1000);
var hour = a.getUTCHours();
var min = a.getUTCMinutes();
var sec = a.getUTCSeconds();

14

votes

I learned a really cool way of converting a given Date object to a Unix timestamp from the source code of JQuery Cookie the other day.

Here's an example:

var date = new Date();
var timestamp = +date;

14

votes

If want a basic way to generate a timestamp in Node.js this works well.

var time = process.hrtime();
var timestamp = Math.round( time[ 0 ] * 1e3 + time[ 1 ] / 1e6 );

Our team is using this to bust cache in a localhost environment. The output is /dist/css/global.css?v=245521377 where 245521377 is the timestamp generated by hrtime().

Hopefully this helps, the methods above can work as well but I found this to be the simplest approach for our needs in Node.js.

14

votes

This seems to work.

console.log(clock.now);
// returns 1444356078076

console.log(clock.format(clock.now));
//returns 10/8/2015 21:02:16

console.log(clock.format(clock.now + clock.add(10, 'minutes'))); 
//returns 10/8/2015 21:08:18

var clock = {
    now:Date.now(),
    add:function (qty, units) {
            switch(units.toLowerCase()) {
                case 'weeks'   :  val = qty * 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 7;  break;
                case 'days'    :  val = qty * 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24;  break;
                case 'hours'   :  val = qty * 1000 * 60 * 60;  break;
                case 'minutes' :  val = qty * 1000 * 60;  break;
                case 'seconds' :  val = qty * 1000;  break;
                default       :  val = undefined;  break;
                }
            return val;
            },
    format:function (timestamp){
            var date = new Date(timestamp);
            var year = date.getFullYear();
            var month = date.getMonth() + 1;
            var day = date.getDate();
            var hours = date.getHours();
            var minutes = "0" + date.getMinutes();
            var seconds = "0" + date.getSeconds();
            // Will display time in xx/xx/xxxx 00:00:00 format
            return formattedTime = month + '/' + 
                                day + '/' + 
                                year + ' ' + 
                                hours + ':' + 
                                minutes.substr(-2) + 
                                ':' + seconds.substr(-2);
            }
};

12

votes

For lodash and underscore users, use _.now.

var timestamp = _.now(); // in milliseconds

10

votes

Moment.js can abstract away a lot of the pain in dealing with Javascript Dates.

See: http://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/unix-timestamp/

moment().unix();

10

votes

As of writing this, the top answer is 9 years old, and a lot has changed since then - not least, we have near universal support for a non-hacky solution:

Date.now()

If you want to be absolutely certain that this won't break in some ancient (pre ie9) browser, you can put it behind a check, like so:

const currentTimestamp = (!Date.now ? +new Date() : Date.now());

This will return the milliseconds since epoch time, of course, not seconds.

MDN Documentation on Date.now

8

votes

more simpler way:

var timeStamp=event.timestamp || new Date().getTime();

How do you get a timestamp in JavaScript?

30 Answers

Short & Snazzy:

Performance

Conclusions

Details