unixtime_milliseconds_todatetime
This page explains how to use the unixtime_milliseconds_todatetime function in APL.
unixtime_milliseconds_todatetime converts a Unix timestamp that’s expressed in whole milliseconds 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 milliseconds (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.
Usage
Syntax
unixtime_milliseconds_todatetime(milliseconds)Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
milliseconds | int or long | Whole milliseconds since the Unix epoch. Fractional input is truncated. |
Returns
A datetime value that represents the given epoch milliseconds at UTC precision (1 millisecond).
Use case example
The HTTP access logs keep the timestamp as epoch milliseconds and you want to convert the values to datetime.
Query
['sample-http-logs']
| extend epoch_milliseconds = toint(datetime_diff('Millisecond', _time, datetime(1970-01-01)))
| extend datetime_standard = unixtime_milliseconds_todatetime(epoch_milliseconds)
| project _time, epoch_milliseconds, datetime_standardOutput
| _time | epoch_milliseconds | datetime_standard |
|---|---|---|
| May 15, 12:09:22 | 1,747,303,762 | 2025-05-15T10:09:22Z |
This query converts the timestamp to epoch milliseconds 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
datetimevalue. - unixtime_nanoseconds_todatetime: Converts a Unix timestamp expressed in whole nanoseconds to an APL
datetimevalue. - unixtime_seconds_todatetime: Converts a Unix timestamp expressed in whole seconds to an APL
datetimevalue.