How to convert UTC time to unix timestamp

Question

I am looking for an option to convert UTC time string to unix timestamp.

The string variable I have is 02/28/2016 10:03:46 PM and it needs to be converted to a unix timestamp like 1456693426

Any idea how to do that?

Answer 1

First of, the unix timestamp 1456693426 does not have the time 10:03:46 PM but 9:03:46 PM in UTC.

In the time package there is the function Parse with expects a layout to parse the time. The layout is constructed from the reference time Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 -0700 MST 2006. So in your case the layout would be 01/02/2006 3:04:05 PM. After using Parse you get a time.Time struct on which you can call Unix to receive the unix timestamp.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
)

func main() {
    layout := "01/02/2006 3:04:05 PM"
    t, err := time.Parse(layout, "02/28/2016 9:03:46 PM")
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println(err)
    }
    fmt.Println(t.Unix())
}