section_path: Usage
section_name: Usage
paragraph_text: Usage
  
  Unix time is widely adopted in computing beyond its original application as the system time for Unix. Unix time is available in almost all system programming APIs, including those provided by both Unix-based and non-Unix operating systems. Almost all modern programming languages provide APIs for working with Unix time or converting them to another data structure. Unix time is also used as a mechanism for storing timestamps in a number of file systems, file formats, and databases.
  
  The C standard library uses Unix time for all date and time functions, and Unix time is sometimes referred to as time_t, the name of the data type used for timestamps in C and C++. C's Unix time functions are defined as the system time API in the POSIX specification. The C standard library is used extensively in all modern desktop operating systems, including Microsoft Windows and Unix-like systems such as macOS and Linux, where it is a standard programming interface.
  
  iOS provides a Swift API which defaults to using an epoch of 1 January 2001 but can also be used with Unix timestamps. Android uses Unix time alongside a timezone for its system time API.
  
  Windows does not use Unix time for storing time internally but does use it in system APIs, which are provided in C++ and implement the C standard library specification. Unix time is used in the PE format for Windows executables.
  
  Unix time is typically available in major programming languages and is widely used in desktop, mobile, and web application programming. Java provides an Instant object which holds a Unix timestamp in both seconds and nanoseconds. Python provides a time library which uses Unix time. JavaScript provides a Date library which provides and stores timestamps in milliseconds since the Unix epoch and is implemented in all modern desktop and mobile web browsers as well as in JavaScript server environments like Node.js.
  
  Free Pascal implements UNIX time with the GetTickCount (deprecated unsigned 32 bit) and GetTickCount64 (Unsigned 64 bit) functions to a resolution of 1ms on Unix-like platforms.
  
  Filesystems designed for use with Unix-based operating systems tend to use Unix time. APFS, the file system used by default across all Apple devices, and ext4, which is widely used on Linux and Android devices, both use Unix time in nanoseconds for file timestamps. Several archive file formats can store timestamps in Unix time, including RAR and tar. Unix time is also commonly used to store timestamps in databases, including in MySQL and PostgreSQL.