The os namespace provides date, time, and clock functions.

Date formats

os.date accepts ISO C strftime-style format strings. Prefix the format with ! to use UTC, or use *t (and !*t for UTC) to return a table of date fields.

• %Y: full year
• %y: year without century
• %m: month from 01 through 12
• %b and %B: abbreviated and full month names
• %d and %e: zero-padded and unpadded day of month
• %H and %I: 24-hour and 12-hour hour
• %M: minute
• %S: second
• %p: AM or PM
• %A and %a: full and abbreviated weekday names
• %w: weekday from 0 through 6, with Sunday as 0
• %U and %W: week of year starting on Sunday or Monday
• %V: ISO 8601 week of year
• %j: day of year
• %Z and %z: time zone name and UTC offset
• %%: literal percent sign

os.clock

os.clock()

Returns a high-resolution elapsed time value in seconds.

Returns:

• number — Browser performance timer in seconds.

os.date

os.date(format?, timestamp?)

Formats a timestamp as a date string or date table, optionally in UTC.

Parameters:

• format? (string) — strftime-style format, *t for a table, and optional leading ! for UTC.
• timestamp? (number) — Unix timestamp; defaults to the current time.

Returns:

• string|table — Formatted date or date fields.

Example:

print(os.date("%Y-%m-%d"))
local utc = os.date("!*t")

os.difftime

os.difftime(t2, t1)

Returns the difference in seconds from timestamp t1 to t2.

Parameters:

• t2 (number)
• t1 (number)

Returns:

• number — The value t2 - t1 in seconds.

os.time

os.time(): integer os.time(dateTable): integer

Returns the current Unix timestamp or one built from a local date table.

Parameters:

• dateTable? (table) — Local date fields year, month, day, and optional hour, min, and sec.

Returns:

• integer — Seconds since the Unix epoch.

Example:

local timestamp = os.time({year = 2020, month = 1, day = 1})