What format is the block timestamp?

Question

I'm using @polkadot-js to decode extrinsic data. The following method call returns a timestamp at a specific block, but I don't know how to parse this.

I tried assuming that it's a unix timestamp in seconds and parsing it like so, but it doesn't fit. Is this in nanoseconds? milliseconds?

How can I parse it into a date object in my favorite programming language?

const timestamp = await api.query.timestamp.now.at(blockHash);

The docs: https://polkadot.js.org/docs/substrate/storage#now-u64

Example: 1590512778000 (Could it be that my timestamps being incorrectly decoded?)

Answer 1

Substrate are time stamped by a number of milliseconds since 1 January 1970 UTC.

This convention is widely adopted by many modern programming environments. Here is a simple example in JS with the timestamp you provided:

let time = new Date(1590512778000)
time.toString()
> "Tue May 26 2020 11:06:18 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time)"

Answer 2

Hmm.. I guess it's an epoch mill

use below site.

https://www.epochconverter.com/