--- title: time description: Converts a timestamp string into a `time.Time` structure. categories: [functions] menu: docs: parent: functions keywords: [dates,time,location] signature: ["time INPUT [TIMEZONE]"] relatedfuncs: [] --- `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: ```go-html-template {{ 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 `TIMEZONE` argument is a string that sets a default time zone (or more specific, the location, which represents the collection of time offsets in a geographical area) 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 `TIMEZONE` argument. 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). If no `TIMEZONE` is set, the `timeZone` from site configuration will be used. ```go-html-template {{ 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/