Linux / UNIX: Convert Epoch Seconds To the Current Time

How do I convert Epoch seconds to the current time under UNIX or Linux operating systems?

Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing points in time, defined as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight proleptic Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds.

Print Current UNIX Time

Type the following command to display the seconds since the epoch:

date +%s

Sample outputs:
1268727836

Convert Epoch To Current Time

Type the command:

date -d @Epoch
date -d @1268727836
date -d "1970-01-01 1268727836 sec GMT"

Sample outputs:

Tue Mar 16 13:53:56 IST 2010

Please note that @ feature only works with latest version of date (GNU coreutils v5.3.0+). To convert number of seconds back to a more readable form, use a command like this:

date -d @1268727836 +"%d-%m-%Y %T %z"

Sample outputs:

16-03-2010 13:53:56 +0530

WARNING! Note that the date and awk command syntax may not work on all versions of UNIX. Please refer to your local man page.

AWK Example

echo 1268727836 | awk '{print strftime("%c",$1)}'

Perl Example

perl -e "print scalar(localtime(1268727836))"