Bash convert date to timestamp

Question

I have a date in format 'YYYYMMDDHHMMSS' and I need to convert it to Unix timestamp.

I tried to date -d '20140826225834' but I get 'invalid date' error. I asume that I would have to convert what I have ( 20140826225834 ) to accepted date and then convert it to timestamp? Edit: I have sed this date from 2014-08-21_23.03.07 - maybe it would be easier to convert this date type

possible duplicate of [Convert date time string to UNIX timestamp in bash command](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10990949/convert-date-time-string-to-unix-timestamp-in-bash-command) — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Jul 25 '15 at 08:59

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 02 '14 at 09:22

5

You should probably change the format of the date you get, so that date can handle it. I change it to a YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS format with sed.

$ date -d"$(sed -r 's#(.{4})(.{2})(.{2})(.{2})(.{2})#\1/\2/\3 \4:\5:#' <<< "20140826225834")" "+%s"
1409086714

By pieces:

$ sed -r 's#(.{4})(.{2})(.{2})(.{2})(.{2})#\1/\2/\3 \4:\5:#' <<< "20140826225834"
2014/08/26 22:58:34

$ date -d"2014/08/26 22:58:34"
Tue Aug 26 22:58:34 CEST 2014

$ date -d"2014/08/26 22:58:34" "+%s"
1409086714

answered Sep 02 '14 at 09:22

fedorqui

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+1 because `sed` will more likely being used in a shell script than PHP ;) – hek2mgl Sep 02 '14 at 09:28
When I run the first piece (sed) I get `1409086714` - is this the timestamp? – Lenny Sep 02 '14 at 09:44
@Lenny yes. UNIX timestamp is `seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC`. – fedorqui Sep 02 '14 at 09:47

hek2mgl · Answer 2 · 2014-09-02T09:30:54.587

1

You could use PHP, since PHP's strtotime() can parse your input format:

#!/bin/bash

input="20140826225834"
output=$(php -r 'echo strtotime("'"$input"'");')

echo "$output" # 1409086714

edited Sep 02 '14 at 09:30

answered Sep 02 '14 at 09:25

hek2mgl

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Bash convert date to timestamp

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