Ruby – How to convert a unix timestamp (seconds since epoch) to Ruby DateTime

datetimerubytimestamp

How do you convert a Unix timestamp (seconds since epoch) to Ruby DateTime?

Best Answer

Sorry, brief moment of synapse failure. Here's the real answer.

require 'date'

Time.at(seconds_since_epoch_integer).to_datetime

Brief example (this takes into account the current system timezone):

$ date +%s
1318996912

$ irb

ruby-1.9.2-p180 :001 > require 'date'
 => true 

ruby-1.9.2-p180 :002 > Time.at(1318996912).to_datetime
 => #<DateTime: 2011-10-18T23:01:52-05:00 (13261609807/5400,-5/24,2299161)>

Further update (for UTC):

ruby-1.9.2-p180 :003 > Time.at(1318996912).utc.to_datetime
 => #<DateTime: 2011-10-19T04:01:52+00:00 (13261609807/5400,0/1,2299161)>

Recent Update: I benchmarked the top solutions in this thread while working on a HA service a week or two ago, and was surprised to find that Time.at(..) outperforms DateTime.strptime(..) (update: added more benchmarks).

# ~ % ruby -v
#  => ruby 2.1.5p273 (2014-11-13 revision 48405) [x86_64-darwin13.0]

irb(main):038:0> Benchmark.measure do
irb(main):039:1*   ["1318996912", "1318496912"].each do |s|
irb(main):040:2*     DateTime.strptime(s, '%s')
irb(main):041:2>   end
irb(main):042:1> end

=> #<Benchmark ... @real=2.9e-05 ... @total=0.0>

irb(main):044:0> Benchmark.measure do
irb(main):045:1>   [1318996912, 1318496912].each do |i|
irb(main):046:2>     DateTime.strptime(i.to_s, '%s')
irb(main):047:2>   end
irb(main):048:1> end

=> #<Benchmark ... @real=2.0e-05 ... @total=0.0>

irb(main):050:0* Benchmark.measure do
irb(main):051:1*   ["1318996912", "1318496912"].each do |s|
irb(main):052:2*     Time.at(s.to_i).to_datetime
irb(main):053:2>   end
irb(main):054:1> end

=> #<Benchmark ... @real=1.5e-05 ... @total=0.0>

irb(main):056:0* Benchmark.measure do
irb(main):057:1*   [1318996912, 1318496912].each do |i|
irb(main):058:2*     Time.at(i).to_datetime
irb(main):059:2>   end
irb(main):060:1> end

=> #<Benchmark ... @real=2.0e-05 ... @total=0.0>
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