ref: 64789fb5dcf8326f14f13d69a2576ae3aa2bbbaa
dir: /docs/content/en/functions/time.md/
---
title: time
linktitle:
description: Converts a timestamp string into a `time.Time` structure.
godocref:
date: 2017-02-01
publishdate: 2017-02-01
lastmod: 2017-02-01
categories: [functions]
menu:
docs:
parent: "functions"
keywords: [dates,time,location]
signature: ["time INPUT [LOCATION]"]
workson: []
hugoversion: "v0.77.0"
relatedfuncs: []
deprecated: false
aliases: []
---
`time` converts a timestamp string with an optional default location into a [`time.Time`](https://godoc.org/time#Time) structure so you can access its fields:
```
{{ time "2016-05-28" }} → "2016-05-28T00:00:00Z"
{{ (time "2016-05-28").YearDay }} → 149
{{ mul 1000 (time "2016-05-28T10:30:00.00+10:00").Unix }} → 1464395400000, or Unix time in milliseconds
```
## Using Locations
The optional `LOCATION` parameter is a string that sets a default location that is associated with the specified time value. If the time value has an explicit timezone or offset specified, it will take precedence over the `LOCATION` parameter.
The list of valid locations may be system dependent, but should include `UTC`, `Local`, or any location in the [IANA Time Zone database](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones).
```
{{ time "2020-10-20" }} → 2020-10-20 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
{{ time "2020-10-20" "America/Los_Angeles" }} → 2020-10-20 00:00:00 -0700 PDT
{{ time "2020-01-20" "America/Los_Angeles" }} → 2020-01-20 00:00:00 -0800 PST
```
## Example: Using `time` to get Month Index
The following example takes a UNIX timestamp---set as `utimestamp: "1489276800"` in a content's front matter---converts the timestamp (string) to an integer using the [`int` function][int], and then uses [`printf`][] to convert the `Month` property of `time` into an index.
The following example may be useful when setting up [multilingual sites][multilingual]:
{{< code file="unix-to-month-integer.html" >}}
{{$time := time (int .Params.addDate)}}
=> $time = 1489276800
{{$time.Month}}
=> "March"
{{$monthindex := printf "%d" $time.Month }}
=> $monthindex = 3
{{< /code >}}
[int]: /functions/int/
[multilingual]: /content-management/multilingual/
[`printf`]: /functions/printf/