Convert a given time to seconds in solaris

Question

I have a time like 2013-04-29 08:17:58. And i need to convert it to seconds since epoch time. No perl please and my OS is solaris. +%s does not work. nawk 'BEGIN{print srand()}' converts the current time to seconds but does not convert a given time to seconds.

Thanks

Answer 1

Here is a shell function that doesn't require perl:

function d2ts
{
    typeset d=$(echo "$@" | tr -d ':- ' | sed 's/..$/.&/')
    typeset t=$(mktemp) || return -1
    typeset s=$(touch -t $d $t 2>&1) || { rm $t ; return -1 ; }
    [ -n "$s" ] && { rm $t ; return -1 ; }
    truss -f -v 'lstat,lstat64' ls -d $t 2>&1 | nawk '/mt =/ {printf "%d\n",$10}'
    rm $t
}

---

$ d2ts 2013-04-29 08:17:58           
1367216278

Note that the returned value depends on your timezone.

$ TZ=GMT d2ts 2013-04-29 08:17:58
1367223478

---

How it works:

• The first line converts the parameters to a format suitable for touch (here "2013-04-29
• 08:17:58" -> "201304290817.58" )
• The second line creates a temporary file
• The third line change the modification time of the just created file to the required value
• The fourth line aborts the function if setting the time failed, i.e. if the provided time is invalid
• The fifth line traces the ls command to get the file modification time and prints it as an integer
• The sixth line removes the temporary file