Node.js - How to generate timestamp unix epoch format?

Question

I am trying to send data to graphite carbon-cache process on port 2003 using

Ubuntu terminal:

echo "test.average 4 `date +%s`" | nc -q0 127.0.0.1 2003

Node.js:

var socket = net.createConnection(2003, "127.0.0.1", function() {
    socket.write("test.average "+assigned_tot+"\n");
    socket.end();
});

It works fine when i send data using the terminal window command on my ubuntu. However, i am not sure how to send timestamp unix epoch format from nodejs ?

Grpahite understands metric in this format metric_path value timestamp

Thanks!

Answer 1

The native JavaScript Date system works in milliseconds as opposed to seconds, but otherwise, it is the same "epoch time" as in UNIX.

You can round down the fractions of a second and get the UNIX epoch by doing:

Math.floor(+new Date() / 1000)

Update: As Guillermo points out, an alternate syntax may be more readable:

Math.floor(new Date().getTime() / 1000)

The + in the first example is a JavaScript quirk that forces evaluation as a number, which has the same effect of converting to milliseconds. The second version does this explicitly.