os.time()

Type Function
Library os.*
Return value Number
Revision Current Public Release (2018.3326)
Keywords os, time, date
See also os.date()
os.clock()
system.getTimer()

Overview

Returns the current time in seconds from 1970 when called without arguments, or a time representing the date and time specified by the given table.

Syntax

os.time( table )
table (optional)

Table. table specifying a time to convert to seconds. If table is present, it must have fields year, month, and day, and may have additional fields hour, min, sec, and isdst (for a description of these fields, see the os.date function).

Example

local t = os.date( '*t' )  -- get table of current date and time
print( os.time( t ) )      -- print date & time as number of seconds
-- OUTPUT: 1287516614
  
t.min = t.min + 1          -- add one to the minute field
print( os.time( t ) )      -- print number of seconds (increases by 60 seconds)
-- OUTPUT: 1287516674
 
-- Get the number of seconds since Jan 1, 1970 for a specific date and time
local t = {}
t.year = 2018
t.month = 12
t.day = 25
t.hour = 0
t.min = 0
t.sec = 0
print( os.time( t ) )
-- OUTPUT: 1545714000