Getting unix timestamp from Date()

Question

I can convert a unix timestamp to a Date() object by putting the long value into the Date() constructor. For eg: I could have it as new Date(1318762128031).

But after that, how can I get back the unix timestamp from the Date() object?

Answer 1

getTime() retrieves the milliseconds since Jan 1, 1970 GMT passed to the constructor. It should not be too hard to get the Unix time (same, but in seconds) from that.

Answer 2

To get a timestamp from Date(), you'll need to divide getTime() by 1000, i.e. :

Date currentDate = new Date(); currentDate.getTime() / 1000; // 1397132691 

or simply:

long unixTime = System.currentTimeMillis() / 1000L;