unixtime_seconds_todatetime

This page explains how to use the unixtime_seconds_todatetime function in APL.

unixtime_seconds_todatetime converts a Unix timestamp that is expressed in whole seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to an APL datetime value.

Use the function whenever you ingest data that stores time as epoch seconds (for example, JSON logs from NGINX or metrics that follow the StatsD line protocol). Converting to datetime lets you bin, filter, and visualize events with the rest of your time-series data.

For users of other query languages

If you come from other query languages, this section explains how to adjust your existing queries to achieve the same results in APL.

Splunk SPL users

unixtime_seconds_todatetime replaces the combination of eval strftime / strptime that you normally use in Splunk. Pass the epoch value directly and APL returns a datetime.

Splunk example

eval event_time = strftime(epoch, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")

ANSI SQL users

Most ANSI SQL engines call this conversion with FROM_UNIXTIME or TO_TIMESTAMP. The APL version has the same single-argument signature, returns a full datetime, and automatically interprets the input as seconds (not milliseconds).

SQL example

SELECT TO_TIMESTAMP(epoch_seconds) AS event_time FROM events;

Usage

Syntax

unixtime_seconds_todatetime(seconds)

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
seconds	int or long	Whole seconds since the Unix epoch. Fractional input is truncated.

Returns

A datetime value that represents the given epoch seconds at UTC precision (1 second).

Use case example

The HTTP access logs keep the timestamp as epoch seconds and you want to convert the values to datetime.

Query

['sample-http-logs']
| extend epoch_seconds = toint(datetime_diff('Second', _time, datetime(1970-01-01)))
| extend datetime_standard = unixtime_seconds_todatetime(epoch_seconds)
| project _time, epoch_seconds, datetime_standard

Run in Playground

Output

_time	epoch_seconds	datetime_standard
May 15, 12:09:22	1,747,303,762	2025-05-15T10:09:22Z

This query converts the timestamp to epoch seconds and then back to datetime for demonstration purposes.

List of related functions

• unixtime_microseconds_todatetime: Converts a Unix timestamp expressed in whole microseconds to an APL datetime value.
• unixtime_milliseconds_todatetime: Converts a Unix timestamp expressed in whole milliseconds to an APL datetime value.
• unixtime_nanoseconds_todatetime: Converts a Unix timestamp expressed in whole nanoseconds to an APL datetime value.