Sometimes, we want to convert a datetime object to milliseconds since epoch (Unix time) in Python.
In this article, we’ll look at how to convert a datetime object to milliseconds since epoch (Unix time) in Python.
How to convert a datetime object to milliseconds since epoch (Unix time) in Python?
To convert a datetime object to milliseconds since epoch (Unix time) in Python, we can subtract the datetime from the epoch datetime.
And then we call total_seconds on the difference and multiply that by 1000.
For instance, we write:
import datetime
epoch = datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(0)
def unix_time_millis(dt):
return (dt - epoch).total_seconds() * 1000.0
dt = datetime.datetime(2020, 1, 1)
print(unix_time_millis(dt))
We use datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(0) to create the Unix epoch datetime.
Then we define the unix_time_millis function that subtracts dt from epoch and call total_seconds on the difference.
And then we multiply that by 1000 to get the difference in milliseconds,
Next, we call unix_time_millis with dt to return the difference of dt since the Unix epoch in milliseconds.
Therefore, print should print 1577836800000.0.
Conclusion
To convert a datetime object to milliseconds since epoch (Unix time) in Python, we can subtract the datetime from the epoch datetime.
And then we call total_seconds on the difference and multiply that by 1000.
