Python: Convert a date to timestamp

Last update on April 22 2025 12:49:07 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

30. Date to Timestamp

Write a Python program to convert a date to a timestamp.

Sample Solution:

Python Code:

# Import the time module
import time
# Import the datetime module
import datetime

# Get the current date and time
now = datetime.datetime.now()

# Print the UNIX timestamp representing the current date and time
# The mktime function is used to convert the time tuple returned by now().timetuple() to a UNIX timestamp
print()
print(time.mktime(now.timetuple()))
print()

Output:

1494224813.0

Explanation:

In the exercise above,

The code imports the "time" and "datetime" modules.
Get the current date and time:

It retrieves the current date and time using the "datetime.now()" method, which returns a 'datetime' object representing the current date and time.

Converting to UNIX Timestamp:

It converts the current date and time (now) to a UNIX timestamp using the "mktime()" function from the 'time' module.
The "timetuple()" method of the 'datetime' object converts the 'datetime' object to a time tuple, which "mktime()" generates the UNIX timestamp.

Finally it prints the UNIX timestamp representing the current date and time to the console.

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a Python program to convert a given date in "YYYY-MM-DD" format to a Unix timestamp and then print the result.
Write a Python script that accepts a date from the user and returns its corresponding timestamp using the datetime module.
Write a Python function to convert multiple dates to timestamps and then sort them based on the timestamp values.
Write a Python program to take a date string, convert it to a datetime object, and then output the Unix timestamp.

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