What is Unix Timestamp (Epoch time)?
Unix Timestamp is a quantity defined by a sequence of numbers describing the total number of seconds elapsed since midnight Thursday, January 1, 1970 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) (minus leap seconds). In the near future, its special milestone is Tuesday, January 19, 2038 at 03:14:07 UTC, when 32-bit systems will crash due to integer overflow.
When do Coders use Timestamp Convert?
- System Logs Analysis: Most Unix/Linux systems write server logs using this integer format to take up minimum space (1 Int integer = 4 bytes). Hard to read but very lightweight for computers to manipulate. When troubleshooting, DEVs must decode it into real time for humans to understand.
- Prevent Timezone Bugs: Transferring data between multiple Server countries using Date Text will cause date calculation errors. Saving standard in Seconds (Timestamp) makes all calculations simple and when displaying on Frontend, use Javascript to translate later.