Skip to main content

Working with Date and Time in Golang

Updated on: webdamn Golang Tutorials, Tutorials

In our previous tutorial, we have explained How to Make HTTP Requests in Golang. In this tutorial, we will explain how to work with Date and Time in Golang.

Date and Time is a common functionality in web applications to display dates in different formats according to requirement. Sometimes we need to get current timestamp or sometimes need to convert timestamp into human readable date time format. In Golang, we can use Time package to handle date time functionality.

Also, read:

Here in this tutorial, we will cover following date time functionality:

1. Get Current Timestamp in Golang

We can easily get the current by using time() package. We will also use the Unix() function to get the current Unix timestamp. Here in below example code, we will get the current Unix timestamp.

package main 
  
import ( 
    "fmt"
    "time"
) 
  
func main() {    
    currentTimestamp := time.Now().Unix()   
    fmt.Println("Current Timestamp: ", currentTimestamp) 
}

Output:

Current Timestamp:  1596975790

2. Convert Current Timestamp to Date in Golang

We can easily convert the Unix timestamp to human readable date using time.Unix function. In below example code, we will convert the Unix timestamp to human readable date.

package main 
  
import ( 
    "fmt"
    "time"
) 
  
func main() {    
    currentTimestamp := 1596975790 
	currentDate := time.Unix(currentTimestamp, 0)	
    fmt.Println("Current Date: ", currentDate) 
}

Output:

Current Date:  2020-08-09 18:03:30 +0530 IST

3. Convert Date to Timestamp in Golang

We can also easily parse the human readable date into time and convert to Unix timestamp. Here in this example code, we will convert the human readable date to Unix time stamp.

package main 
  
import ( 
    "fmt"
    "time"
) 
  
func main() {    
    dateTime, e := time.Parse(time.RFC3339, "2020-08-09T22:08:41+00:00")
	if e != nil {
		panic("Parse error") 
	}
	timestamp := dateTime.Unix()
    fmt.Println("Date to Timestamp : ", timestamp) 
}

Output:

Date to Timestamp :  1597010921

You may also like: