Postgresql – How to get the timestamp column in only milliseconds from PostgreSQL

date formatpostgresqltimestamp

I have a column "created" with type timestamp without time zone default now() in a PostgreSQL database.

If I select colums, it has a nice and readable format per default:

SELECT created FROM mytable;

         created
---------------------------
2011-05-17 10:40:28.876944

But I would like to get the timestamp in only milliseconds (as a Long). Something like this:

SELECT myformat(created) FROM mytable;

     created
-----------------
2432432343876944

How can I get the timestamp column in only milliseconds from PostgreSQL?

Response to Jack:

I do get the same difference as you (-3600), but if I use timestamp with time zone I can see that the "error" or difference is because '1970-01-01' gets time zone +01.

create table my_table_2(created timestamp with time zone);
CREATE TABLE
insert into my_table_2 (created) values (now()), ('1970-01-01');
INSERT 0 2
select created, extract(epoch from created) from my_table_2;
            created            |    date_part
-------------------------------+------------------
 2011-05-18 11:03:16.909338+02 | 1305709396.90934
 1970-01-01 00:00:00+01        |            -3600
(2 rows)

Is the difference a bug? I may be because of "Daylight saving times" at the moment?

Also interesting while using to_timestamp() to insert timestamp 0 and 1.

insert into my_table_2 (created) values (to_timestamp(0));
INSERT 0 1

insert into my_table_2 (created) values (to_timestamp(1));
INSERT 0 1
select created, extract(epoch from created) from my_table_2;
            created            |    date_part
-------------------------------+------------------
 2011-05-18 11:03:16.909338+02 | 1305709396.90934
 1970-01-01 00:00:00+01        |            -3600
 1970-01-01 01:00:00+01        |                0
 1970-01-01 01:00:01+01        |                1

Best Answer

Use EXTRACT and the UNIX-Timestamp

SELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM TIMESTAMP '2011-05-17 10:40:28.876944') * 1000;

would give

1305621628876.94

Multiply it by 1000 to turn it into milliseconds. You can then convert it to whatever you want (decimal would be a good choice). Don't forget to keep the timezone in mind. JackPDouglas has such an example in his answer. Here is an excerpt from his answer (created being the column with your timetamp) that illustrates how to work with timezones:

SELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM created AT TIME ZONE 'UTC') FROM my_table;

Related Solutions

Postgresql – How to get the current unix timestamp from PostgreSQL

In postgres, timestamp with time zone can be abbreviated as timestamptz, and timestamp without time zone as timestamp. I will use the shorter type names for simplicity.

Getting the Unix timestamp from a postgres timestamptz like now() is simple, as you say, just:

select extract(epoch from now());

That's really all you need to know about getting the absolute time from anything of type timestamptz, including now().

Things only get complicated when you have a timestamp field.

When you put timestamptz data like now() into that field, it will first be converted to a particular timezone (either explicitly with at time zone or by converting to the session timezone) and the timezone information is discarded. It no longer refers to an absolute time. This is why you don't usually want to store timestamps as timestamp and would normally use timestamptz — maybe a film gets released at 6pm on a particular date in every timezone, that's the kind of use case.

If you only ever work in a single time zone you might get away with (mis)using timestamp. Conversion back to timestamptz is clever enough to cope with DST, and the timestamps are assumed, for conversion purposes, to be in the current time zone. Here's an example for GMT/BST:

select '2011-03-27 00:59:00.0+00'::timestamptz::timestamp::timestamptz
     , '2011-03-27 01:00:00.0+00'::timestamptz::timestamp::timestamptz;

/*
|timestamptz           |timestamptz           |
|:---------------------|:---------------------|
|2011-03-27 00:59:00+00|2011-03-27 02:00:00+01|
*/

_DBFiddle

But, note the following confusing behaviour:

set timezone to 0;

values(1, '1970-01-01 00:00:00+00'::timestamp::timestamptz)
    , (2, '1970-01-01 00:00:00+02'::timestamp::timestamptz);

/*
|column1|column2               |
|------:|:---------------------|
|      1|1970-01-01 00:00:00+00|
|      2|1970-01-01 00:00:00+00|
*/

_DBFiddle

This is because:

PostgreSQL never examines the content of a literal string before determining its type, and therefore will treat both […] as timestamp without time zone. To ensure that a literal is treated as timestamp with time zone, give it the correct explicit type…In a literal that has been determined to be timestamp without time zone, PostgreSQL will silently ignore any time zone indication

Mysql – How to compare (in MySQL) a DATETIME value to a TIMESTAMP value

There is a manual page on Time and Date functions.

The best way to compare date and time and get minutes back is probably to use one of the following:

SELECT TIME_TO_SEC(TIMEDIFF(timea,timeb)+0)/60
SELECT TIMESTAMPDIFF(MINUTE,timeb,timea)

Note that while TIMEDIFF works with times, TIMESTAMPDIFF requires a date component - and the values are switched around for TIMESTAMPDIFF.

You can return hours with either of these:

SELECT TIME_TO_SEC(TIMEDIFF(timea,timeb)+0)/60/60
SELECT TIMESTAMPDIFF(HOUR,timeb,timea)

Note that when using DATEDIFF, the value returned is a difference between the date components of the given time - thus, a value of 23:59 on one day compared to a value of 0:01 on the next (a 2 minute difference) results in a date difference of 1 (a full day).

To get a difference between two times in 24-hour periods (length of a day) first calculate the difference in minutes then divide by the proper values to find the number of 24-hour periods. Try this:

SELECT TRUNCATE(TIMESTAMPDIFF(MINUTE,timeb,timea)/60.0/24.0,0)

This truncates the decimal portion, returning only the number of complete 24-hour periods in the specified timespan.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Postgresql – How to get the current unix timestamp from PostgreSQL

Mysql – How to compare (in MySQL) a DATETIME value to a TIMESTAMP value

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