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The type of the fromdate or todate in several methods is set to

unix epoch date, range [0, 253,402,300,799]

I don't know what that is and I can't find any information -- can someone explain it or point me to the right place?
Thanks.

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1 Answer

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These are Unix timestamps. They represent the number of seconds that have passed since the Unix Epoch, which occurred at 12:00 am UTC on January 1, 1970.

You can convert a human-readable date to / from a Unix timestamp using Wolfram Alpha. Example queries:

"convert January 15, 2005 14:56 PST to unix timestamp"
"convert unix timestamp 1105829760"

The end of the range is the highest possible date represented by as a timestamp.

convert unix timestamp 253402300799 Friday, 31 Dec 9999 23:59:59 GMT

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Thank you for your answer. What I don't understand is the range [0, 253,402,300,799] part. And the wikipedia article doesn't seem to say something about it.. – Irene Dec 9 '11 at 9:56
Marked as answered, but it would be nice if you could answer to my other comment as well! thanks – Irene Feb 5 '12 at 19:35
I honestly don't know what that number represents. My best guess is that it represents the maximum value returned in that field. – Nathan Osman♦ Feb 5 '12 at 20:25
As Nathan suggested, the end of the range is the highest possible date represented by as a timestamp. > convert unix timestamp 253402300799 > Friday, 31 Dec 9999 23:59:59 GMT – Joe O May 2 at 7:39

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