How to convert epoch unix timestamp (in milliseconds) to date in YYYYMMDD

[hxin (Hongjie Xin)]

One of the fields in the payload to workflow is a date field and it is in format of unix timestamp (in milliseconds). I want to find a way to convert it to a date string in format of YYYYMMDD. I tried the date functions in workflow transform however not lucky.

Does anyone have any idea? Thanks!

[srikanth.prathipati1803 (Srikanth Prathipati)]

Hi,

You can try Java Service

long unix_seconds = 1372339860;
   //convert seconds to milliseconds
   Date date = new Date(unix_seconds*1000L); 
   // format of the date
   SimpleDateFormat jdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z");
   jdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-4"));
   String java_date = jdf.format(date);

[Dave_Pemberton]

Hey Hongjie

I think this is a workflow related ask.
There’s a few ways to do this

1. EpochDate Time is milliseconds since 1970, therefore you can use a transformer to increment a date starting from 1970-01-01 and add the milliseconds, like below, but passing the epoch time rather than hardcoding like I did in the screenshot

You can also take into account locales/timezones and specify an output format:

2. Write a node.js action (instead of a CLI connector) and put in code something like this:

var request = require ("request");

module.exports = function(){

    this.id = "my-first-action"; 
    this.label = "Sample"; 
    this.help = "Sample code for reference"; 
 
    this.input = {
    "title": "From Epoch",
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
      "epochDateTime": {
        "title": 'epochDateTime',
        "type": 'integer',
        "description": 'epoch/unix date/time',
        "minLength": 1
      },

    }
  },

  this.output = {
    "title": "output",
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
      "isoDatetime": {
        "title": 'iso Date/Time',
        "type": 'string',
        "description": 'date time in ISO format',
        "minLength": 0
      },
    }
  },

    this.execute = function(input,output){
        if(input.epochDateTime){
            var date = new Date(input.epochDateTime);
            return output(null, { "isoDateTime" : date.toISOString()});
        }
    } 
}

3. Write the same but as a CLI connector.
4. You can do similar as option 1 in a Flow Service.

Clearly the first option is the most simple

If you ever need to go the opposite direction then CalculateDateDifference can be used, to calculate the number of seconds between 1970-01-01 and the datetime, then multiply up to get the milliseconds value with another transformer.

Some people might find this easier in a FlowService so just for completeness, I attached a couple of FlowService samples exported from wm.io integration to convert an Epoch date to Excel formatted date (the excel format date always blows my mind ), and also a convert date time to Epoch.

Just remember sometime epoch has two flavours to content with just to make life difficult - seconds or milliseconds

convertEpochDateToExcel.zip (8.4 KB)
dateTimeToEpoch.zip (8.3 KB)

[Dave_Pemberton]

Hey @srikanth.prathipati1803 … it’s been a long time

Currently Java Services aren’t avail in webmethods.io (hint: we are working on this though)
You can achieve this in FlowService even without a Java Service though with some creative use of the date functions

[hxin (Hongjie Xin)]

Thank you Dave. The first option works well in workflow transform. I will use this method at the moment.

[Dave_Pemberton]

You are very welcome Hongjie!