ASP.NET: Get milliseconds since 1/1/1970

Question

I have an ASP.NET, VB.NET Date, and I'm trying to get the number of milliseconds since January 1st, 1970. I tried looking for a method in MSDN, but I couldn't find anything. Does anyone know how to do this?

Answer 1

You can subtract any two DateTime instances and get TimeSpan and TotalMilliseconds would give you total milliseconds. Sample below.

    DateTime dt1970 = new DateTime(1970, 1, 1);
    DateTime current = DateTime.Now;//DateTime.UtcNow for unix timestamp
    TimeSpan span = current - dt1970;
    Console.WriteLine(span.TotalMilliseconds.ToString());

one liner

//DateTime.MinValue is 01/01/01 00:00 so add 1969 years. to get 1/1/1970
DateTime.Now.Subtract(DateTime.MinValue.AddYears(1969)).TotalMilliseconds;