Date to Timestamp Conversion in Different Programming Languages

Most languages have a dedicated type for dates or timestamps, with the notable exception of C. In this guide, we show how to convert from a literal string representing a date into the native Date type, and then into a Timestamp type using Python, Go, Java, C, C++, Rust, C#/.NET, JavaScript/Node.js, Ruby, and PHP.

QuestDB offers clients for Python, Go, Java, C, C++, Rust, C#/.NET, and JavaScript/Node.js. Some of the clients can directly use a Timestamp type when using the client, while others need to convert the timestamp into a long representing the epoch time in microseconds. We add such required conversions into the snippets.

Please refer to the ingestion overview to learn more about the details of the client library for your language.

Date to Timestamp in Python

The datetime.date type stores only date information, while datetime.datetime stores both date and time information. The QuestDB Python client accepts either a datetime.datetime object, or a pandas.timestamp.

from datetime import datetime, date
import pandas as pd
from questdb.ingress import Sender

date_str = '2024-08-05'

# We could parse the string directly into a datetime object, 
# but for this example, we will show how to convert it via a date.
date_obj = datetime.strptime(date_str, '%Y-%m-%d').date()
print(f"Date object: {date_obj}")

# Convert to datetime object. This object can be passed as a column value in the QuestDB Python client's row() API.
datetime_obj = datetime.combine(date_obj, datetime.min.time())
print(f"DateTime object: {datetime_obj}")

# Now you can pass the datetime_obj to the QuestDB sender, as in
# ...
# columns={'NonDesignatedTimestampColumnName': datetime_obj,
# ...


# Optionally, you can convert to a pandas Timestamp. The QuestDB Python client offers the dataframe() API, which accepts pd.Timestamp columns
pd_timestamp = pd.Timestamp(datetime_obj)
print(f"Pandas Timestamp: {pd_timestamp}")

Learn more about the QuestDB Python Client

Date to Timestamp in Go

The time.Time type stores both date and time information. It is used for most time-related tasks in Go, such as parsing dates, formatting dates, and time arithmetic.

The QuestDB Go client expects the timestamp as an int64, in unix microseconds, so we will need to convert it.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
    "github.com/questdb/go-questdb-client/"
)

func main() {
    dateStr := "2024-08-05"

    // Layout string to match the format of dateStr
    layout := "2006-01-02"

    // Parse the date string into a time.Time object
    dateObj, err := time.Parse(layout, dateStr)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error parsing date:", err)
        return
    }

    // Convert the dateObj to a timestamp in microseconds
    timestamp := dateObj.UnixNano() / int64(time.Microsecond)

    fmt.Println("Date:", dateObj)
    fmt.Println("Timestamp (microseconds):", timestamp)

    // Now you can call add the column to the QuestDB client, as in
    // ...
    // TimestampColumn("NonDesignatedTimestampColumnName", timestamp).
    // ...
}

Learn more about the QuestDB Go Client

Date to Timestamp in Java

The java.time.LocalDate type stores only date information, while java.time.LocalDateTime stores both date and time information.

The QuestDB Java Client expects either a java.time.Instant object or a long value representing an epoch number. When using a long, you must provide the time unit using java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit.

Example using Instant

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import io.questdb.client.Sender;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String dateStr = "2024-08-05";
        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd");
        // Note we are only converting to Date for educational purposes, but we really need the timestamp for QuestDB
        LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(dateStr, formatter);

        // Convert LocalDate to Instant at the start of the day in the default time zone
        Instant instant = date.atStartOfDay(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toInstant();

        System.out.println("Date: " + date);
        System.out.println("Instant: " + instant);

        // Example method call using QuestDB API
        try (Sender sender = Sender.fromConfig("http::addr=localhost:9000;")) {
            sender.table("trades")
                    .symbol("symbol", "ETH-USD")
                    .symbol("side", "sell")
                    .timestampColumn("NonDesignatedTimestampColumnName", instant)
                    .doubleColumn("price", 2615.54)
                    .doubleColumn("amount", 0.00044)
                    .atNow();
    }
}

Example using a long with epoch microseconds and java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneOffset;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit;
import io.questdb.client.Sender;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String dateStr = "2024-08-05";
        DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd");
        // Note we are only converting to Date for educational purposes, but we really need the timestamp for QuestDB
        LocalDate date = LocalDate.parse(dateStr, formatter);

        // Convert LocalDate to LocalDateTime at the start of the day
        LocalDateTime dateTime = date.atStartOfDay();

        // Convert LocalDateTime to epoch microseconds
        long epochMicro = dateTime.toInstant(ZoneOffset.UTC).toEpochMilli() * 1000;

        System.out.println("Epoch in Microseconds: " + epochMicro);

        // Example method call using QuestDB API
        try (Sender sender = Sender.fromConfig("http::addr=localhost:9000;")) {
            sender.table("trades")
                    .symbol("symbol", "ETH-USD")
                    .symbol("side", "sell")
                    .timestampColumn("NonDesignatedTimestampColumnName", epochMicro, ChronoUnit.MICROS)
                    .doubleColumn("price", 2615.54)
                    .doubleColumn("amount", 0.00044)
                    .atNow();

    }

}

Learn more about the QuestDB Java Client

Date to Timestamp in C

Standard C does not have a native Date type, but struct tm in <time.h> can store both date and time information.

The QuestDB C client expects timestamp to be an int64_t in microseconds, so we will need to convert it.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <questdb/ingress/line_sender.hpp>


int main() {
    char dateStr[] = "2024-08-05";
    struct tm tm = {0};
    strptime(dateStr, "%Y-%m-%d", &tm);

    // Convert to time_t (seconds since Epoch)
    time_t seconds = mktime(&tm);

    // Convert to microseconds
    int64_t microseconds = (int64_t)seconds * 1000000;
    printf("Date: %s, Timestamp (microseconds): %ld
", dateStr, microseconds);

    // you can now pass the microseconds variable to the QuestDB client line_sender_buffer_column_ts_micros function

    return 0;
}

Learn more about the QuestDB C Client

Date to Timestamp in C++

The std::chrono::year_month_day type from C++20 stores only date information, while std::chrono::time_point stores both date and time information.

The QuestDB C++ client accepts an int64_t as microseconds, but also a std::chrono::time_point<ClockT, std::chrono::nanoseconds> or a std::chrono::time_point<ClockT, DurationT>.

#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
#include <chrono>
#include <iomanip>
#include <questdb/ingress/line_sender.hpp>


int main() {
    std::string dateStr = "2024-08-05";
    std::istringstream iss(dateStr);
    std::tm tm = {};
    iss >> std::get_time(&tm, "%Y-%m-%d");

    // Convert to time_point (timestamp)
    auto tp = std::chrono::system_clock::from_time_t(std::mktime(&tm));
    auto microseconds = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::microseconds>(tp.time_since_epoch()).count();

    std::cout << "Date: " << std::put_time(&tm, "%Y-%m-%d") << ", Timestamp (microseconds): " << microseconds << std::endl;

    // You can now pass the microseconds variable to the QuestDB column function, converting to int64_t using the
    // timestamp_micros function
    // .column("NotDesignatedTimestampColumnName",questdb::ingress::timestamp_micros(microseconds)

    return 0;
}

Learn more about the QuestDB C++ Client

Date to Timestamp in Rust

The chrono::NaiveDate type stores only date information, while chrono::NaiveDateTime stores both date and time information.

The QuestDB Rust client accepts either a i64 Epoch in microseconds, or a chrono::Datetime.

extern crate chrono;
use questdb::ingress::{Sender, Buffer, TimestampMicros}
use chrono::{NaiveDate, NaiveDateTime};

fn main() {
    let date_str = "2024-08-05";
    let date_obj = NaiveDate::parse_from_str(date_str, "%Y-%m-%d").expect("Failed to parse date");

    // Convert to NaiveDateTime for timestamp
    let datetime = date_obj.and_hms(0, 0, 0);
    let timestamp = datetime.timestamp_micros();

    println!("Date: {}", date_obj);
    println!("Timestamp (microseconds): {}", timestamp);

    // You can now use this timestamp to call the .column_ts QuestDB API
    // .column_ts("NonDesignatedTimestampColumnName", TimestampMicros::new(timestamp))?



}

Learn more about the QuestDB Rust Client

Date to Timestamp in C#/.NET

The System.DateTime type stores both date and time information. There is also System.DateOnly for only date information in .NET 6 and later.

The QuestDB Dotnet client accepts DateTime or DateTimeOffset objects. Showing both options below.

using System;
using QuestDB;


class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        string dateStr = "2024-08-05";

        // Parse the date string into a DateTime object
        DateTime date = DateTime.ParseExact(dateStr, "yyyy-MM-dd", null);
        Console.WriteLine("DateTime: " + date);

        // You can now call the QuestDB API adding a column, as in
        // sender.Column("NonDesignatedTimestampColumnName", date);


        // Parse the date string into a DateTimeOffset object
        DateTimeOffset dateOffset = DateTimeOffset.ParseExact(dateStr, "yyyy-MM-dd", null);
        Console.WriteLine("DateTimeOffset: " + dateOffset);

        // You can now call the QuestDB API adding a column, as in
        // sender.Column("NonDesignatedTimestampColumnName", dateOffset);
    }
}

Learn more about the QuestDB .NET Client

Date to Timestamp in JavasScript/Node.js

The Date type stores both date and time information.

The QuestDB Node.js client accepts an epoch in microseconds, which can be a number or bigint.

const { Sender } = require("@questdb/nodejs-client")

const dateStr = '2024-08-05';
const dateObj = new Date(dateStr + 'T00:00:00Z');

// Convert to timestamp (milliseconds since Epoch) then convert to microseconds
const timestamp = BigInt(dateObj.getTime()) * 1000n;
console.log("Date:", dateObj.toISOString().split('T')[0]);
console.log("Timestamp (microseconds):", timestamp.toString());

// You can now add the column using QuestDB client, as in
// .timestampColumn("NonDesignatedTimestampColumnName", timestamp)

Learn more about the QuestDB Node.js Client

Date to Timestamp in Ruby

The Date class stores only date information, while the DateTime class stores both date and time information.

QuestDB does not have an official Ruby client, but you can send a POST request comprising the ILP messages. Within this messages, you can pass an epoch timestamp in nanoseconds as the designated timestamp, and pass epoch timestamps in microseconds for other timestamp columns.

Alternatively, you can use the InfluxDB Ruby Client, which is compatible with QuestDB.

require 'date'

date_str = '2024-08-05'
date_obj = Date.parse(date_str)

# Convert to DateTime for timestamp in microseconds
datetime_obj = DateTime.parse(date_str)
timestamp = (datetime_obj.to_time.to_i * 1_000_000) + (datetime_obj.to_time.usec)

puts "Date: #{date_obj}"
puts "Timestamp (microseconds): #{timestamp}"

Learn more about the ILP text format.

Date to Timestamp in PHP

Both of the DateTime and DateTimeImmutable classes store date and time information

QuestDB does not have an official PHP client, but you can send a POST request comprising the ILP messages. Within this messages, you can pass an epoch timestamp in nanoseconds as the designated timestamp, and pass epoch timestamps in microseconds for other timestamp columns.

Alternatively, you can use the InfluxDB PHP Client, which is compatible with QuestDB.

<?php
$date_str = '2024-08-05';
$date_obj = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', $date_str);

// Timestamp in microseconds
$timestamp = $date_obj->getTimestamp() * 1000000;

echo "Date: " . $date_obj->format('Y-m-d') . "
";
echo "Timestamp (microseconds): " . $timestamp . "
";
?>

Learn more about the ILP text format.