Converting epoch time with milliseconds to datetime

Question

I have used a ruby script to convert iso time stamp to epoch, the files that I am parsing has following time stamp structure:

2009-03-08T00:27:31.807

Since I want to keep milliseconds I used following ruby code to convert it to epoch time:

irb(main):010:0> DateTime.parse('2009-03-08T00:27:31.807').strftime("%Q")
=> "1236472051807"

But In python I tried following:

import time 
time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', time.gmtime(1236472051807))

But I don't get the original time date time back,

>>> time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', time.gmtime(1236472051807))
'41152-03-29 02:50:07'
>>>

I wonder is it related to how I am formatting?

falsetru · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-14T19:33:23.737

200

Use datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp:

>>> import datetime
>>> s = 1236472051807 / 1000.0
>>> datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(s).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
'2009-03-08 09:27:31.807000'

%f directive is only supported by datetime.datetime.strftime, not by time.strftime.

UPDATE Alternative using %, str.format:

>>> import time
>>> s, ms = divmod(1236472051807, 1000)  # (1236472051, 807)
>>> '%s.%03d' % (time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', time.gmtime(s)), ms)
'2009-03-08 00:27:31.807'
>>> '{}.{:03d}'.format(time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', time.gmtime(s)), ms)
'2009-03-08 00:27:31.807'

edited Feb 14 '14 at 19:33

answered Feb 14 '14 at 19:14

falsetru

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yeah I was gonna suggest this ... but meh good answer(+1 for preserving the milliseconds in the display :)) – Joran Beasley Feb 14 '14 at 19:18
Great answer also @JoranBeasley yours is great too :) Thanks guys. – add-semi-colons Feb 14 '14 at 19:49
1

Please note @falsetru first answer divide by floating point `1000.0` thus maintaining the milliseconds in the datetime. – Lorenzo Belli May 23 '17 at 14:35
Thanks. Exactly what I was looking for – anish Jan 22 '20 at 12:38
Note: `fromtimestamp` expects an int or a float. If you pass it a Decimal; its behaviour depends on your python version. Some python versions (<= 3.5?) will convert to a float and work as expected. While python 3.8 issues a warning and **converts to an int**, discarding any milliseconds your input may have provided. – Aaron Dec 07 '20 at 22:22

Joran Beasley · Answer 2 · 2014-02-14T19:16:40.583

24

those are miliseconds, just divide them by 1000, since gmtime expects seconds ...

time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', time.gmtime(1236472051807/1000.0))

edited Feb 14 '14 at 19:16

answered Feb 14 '14 at 19:08

Joran Beasley

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I see but I ll be loosing the milliseconds right..? – add-semi-colons Feb 14 '14 at 19:13
1

yes ... I think you can keep them by doing `timestamp/1000.0` which will pass them in as a decimal ... (although Im not sure if you can retrieve them) – Joran Beasley Feb 14 '14 at 19:15
is there an equivalent to gmtime that takes micro or milliseconds as an input? – Rutger Hofste Oct 03 '17 at 12:39
1

`seconds == milliseconds/1000` ... if you put this in a function you will have a gmtime that accepts milliseconds ... micro seconds you just divide by 10^6 – Joran Beasley Oct 03 '17 at 19:32

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 13 '21 at 01:17

I'm a pendulum fan... so...

import pendulum
pendulum.from_timestamp(1236472051807/1000.0,tz='America/Toronto')

outputs:

DateTime(2019, 12, 20, 10, 55, 10, tzinfo=Timezone('America/Toronto'))

For all the searches looking for internalDate for the Gmail API... the above is what works for me and is more accurate than the Date header.

Converting epoch time with milliseconds to datetime

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