Unix time (also known as
POSIX time or
Epoch time) is a system for describing instants in
time, defined as the number of
seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thursday, 1 January 1970, not counting
leap seconds. It is used widely in
Unix-like and many other operating systems and
file formats. Because it does not handle leap seconds, it is neither a linear representation of time nor a true representation of UTC. Unix time may be checked on most Unix systems by typing on the command line.