Converting DateTimeField in Django to Unix time

Question

In a Django project of mine, I'm using DateTimeField in a model. This essentially has python datetime.datetime instances.

What's the fastest way convert this to time since epoch (in seconds)?

I disagree that this is a duplicate. If you have a datetime field Django and you want the unix timestamp you do the following: `Project.objects.get(id=1)`. Now the timestamp is accessible via `Project.objects.get(id=1)[0]['created_at'].timestamp()` — Richard, Jan 31 '20 at 17:27

score 29 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 17 '16 at 13:03

29

In Python 3.3+ you can use datetime.timestamp():

>>> datetime.datetime(2012,4,1,0,0).timestamp()
1333234800.0

For earlier version of Python, you can do:

# Format it into seconds
>>> datetime.datetime(2012,04,01,0,0).strftime('%s')
'1333234800'

# OR, subtract the time with 1 Jan, 1970 i.e start of epoch time
# get the difference of seconds using `total_seconds()`
>>> (datetime.datetime(2012,04,01,0,0) - datetime.datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds()
1333238400.0

answered Nov 17 '16 at 13:03

Moinuddin Quadri

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any problems one can run into using `%s` (since its implementation is OS dependent)? – Hassan Baig Nov 17 '16 at 13:07
@HassanBaigI didn't knew about that. Can you share some document? It would be worth reading :) – Moinuddin Quadri Nov 17 '16 at 13:09
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Wang's comment under http://stackoverflow.com/a/11111177/4936905 – Hassan Baig Nov 17 '16 at 13:12
mypy is unhappy: `"DateTimeField[Union[str, date, Combinable], datetime]" has no attribute "timestamp"` – mcan Apr 11 '22 at 15:40

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 17 '16 at 14:12

3

datetime.datetime(date).strftime('%s')

I think it would work for you.

edited Nov 17 '16 at 14:12

smottt

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answered Nov 17 '16 at 13:03

Afsal Salim

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Converting DateTimeField in Django to Unix time

2 Answers2