Epoch Converter and Date/Time in Java

Quick Navigation

• Date and Time
• Formatting Dates
• Convert from Epoch to Human Readable Date
• Convert from Human Readable Date to Epoch

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Date and Time

An easy way to get the current date and time in Java is using the Date class which is available in the java.util package.

    import java.util.Date;

    class Main {
      public static void main(String[] args) {
        Date date = new Date();
        System.out.println(date);
      }
    }

                

Output:

    Sat Feb 16 03:50:30 UTC 2019

                

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Formatting Dates

There are multiple ways to format dates.

    import java.util.*;
    import java.text.*;

    class Main {
      public static void main(String[] args) {
        //1st way
        System.out.println();
        Date date = new Date();
        System.out.printf("%1$s %2$tB %2$td, %2$tY", "Current date:", date);

      //2nd way
        System.out.println("\n");
        Date d = new Date();
        SimpleDateFormat ft =
        new SimpleDateFormat ("E yyyy-MM-dd 'at' hh:mm:ss a zzz");
        System.out.println("Current Date and Time: " + ft.format(d));

      //3rd way
        System.out.println();
        Date d2 = new Date();
        // display time and date
        String str = String.format("Current Date and Time: %tc", d2 );
        System.out.printf(str);
      }
    }

                

Output:

    Current date: February 16, 2019

    Current Date and Time: Sat 2019-02-16 at 03:52:46 AM UTC

    Current Date and Time: Sat Feb 16 03:52:46 UTC 2019

                

Click here to learn more about formatting dates.

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Convert from Epoch to Human Readable Date

Here is the way in Java to convert epoch or unix time to a human readable date.

    import java.util.*;

    class Main {
      public static void main(String[] args) {
          //You could start with a string representation of epoch
          String epochString = "1549499024";
          long epoch = Long.parseLong( epochString );
          System.out.println("Convert Epoch " + epoch + " to date: ");
          Date d = new Date( epoch * 1000 ); //convert epoch seconds to microseconds
          System.out.println(d);

          //You could start with a long number epoch
          long epoch2 = 1550544173;
          System.out.println(new Date(epoch2 * 1000));
      }
    }

                

Output:

    Convert Epoch 1549499024 to date:
    Thu Feb 07 00:23:44 UTC 2019
    Tue Feb 19 02:42:53 UTC 2019

                

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Convert from Human Readable Date to Epoch

Here is the way in Java to format the date to show as epoch or unix time.

    import java.util.*;

    class Main {
      public static void main(String[] args) {
          //Get the unix timestamp using Date
          Date currentDate = new Date();
          long epoch = currentDate.getTime() / 1000;
          System.out.println("Epoch: " + epoch);

          //You could use string format to format to unix timestamp
          Date date = new Date();
          String str = String.format("Epoch using string format: %ts", date );
          System.out.printf(str);
      }
    }

                

Output:

    Epoch: 1550544489
    Epoch using string format: 1550544489

                

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