How can I convert a datetime object to milliseconds since epoch (unix time) in Python?

Question

I have a Python datetime object that I want to convert to unix time, or seconds/milliseconds since the 1970 epoch.

How do I do this?

Answer 1

from datetime import datetime
from calendar import timegm

# Note: if you pass in a naive dttm object it's assumed to already be in UTC
def unix_time(dttm=None):
    if dttm is None:
       dttm = datetime.utcnow()

    return timegm(dttm.utctimetuple())

print "Unix time now: %d" % unix_time()
print "Unix timestamp from an existing dttm: %d" % unix_time(datetime(2014, 12, 30, 12, 0))