Timestamp in milliseconds

To get the number of milliseconds since Unix epoch, call Date.now:

Date.now()

Alternatively, use the unary operator + to call Date.prototype.valueOf:

+ new Date()

Alternatively, call valueOf directly:

new Date().valueOf()

To support IE8 and earlier (see compatibility table), create a shim for Date.now:

if (!Date.now) {
    Date.now = function() { return new Date().getTime(); }
}

Alternatively, call getTime directly:

new Date().getTime()

Timestamp in seconds

To get the number of seconds since Unix epoch, i.e. Unix timestamp:

Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000)

Alternatively, using bitwise-or to floor is slightly faster, but also less readable and may break in the future (see explanations 1, 2):

Date.now() / 1000 | 0

Timestamp in milliseconds (higher resolution)

Use performance.now:

var isPerformanceSupported = (
    window.performance &&
    window.performance.now &&
    window.performance.timing &&
    window.performance.timing.navigationStart
);

var timeStampInMs = (
    isPerformanceSupported ?
    window.performance.now() +
    window.performance.timing.navigationStart :
    Date.now()
);

console.log(timeStampInMs, Date.now());

Parsing dates is a pain in JavaScript as there's no extensive native support. However you could do something like the following by relying on the Date(year, month, day [, hour, minute, second, millisecond]) constructor signature of the Date object.

var dateString = '17-09-2013 10:08',
    dateTimeParts = dateString.split(' '),
    timeParts = dateTimeParts[1].split(':'),
    dateParts = dateTimeParts[0].split('-'),
    date;

date = new Date(dateParts[2], parseInt(dateParts[1], 10) - 1, dateParts[0], timeParts[0], timeParts[1]);

console.log(date.getTime()); //1379426880000
console.log(date); //Tue Sep 17 2013 10:08:00 GMT-0400

You could also use a regular expression with capturing groups to parse the date string in one line.

var dateParts = '17-09-2013 10:08'.match(/(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+) (\d+):(\d+)/);

console.log(dateParts); // ["17-09-2013 10:08", "17", "09", "2013", "10", "08"]

You can initialise a Date object and call getTime() to get it in unix form. It comes out in milliseconds so you'll need to divide by 1000 to get it in seconds.

(new Date("2013/09/05 15:34:00").getTime()/1000)

It may have decimal bits so wrapping it in Math.round would clean that.

Math.round(new Date("2013/09/05 15:34:00").getTime()/1000)

let unix_timestamp = 1549312452;

// Create a new JavaScript Date object based on the timestamp
// multiplied by 1000 so that the argument is in milliseconds, not seconds
var date = new Date(unix_timestamp * 1000);

// Hours part from the timestamp
var hours = date.getHours();

// Minutes part from the timestamp
var minutes = "0" + date.getMinutes();

// Seconds part from the timestamp
var seconds = "0" + date.getSeconds();

// Will display time in 10:30:23 format
var formattedTime = hours + ':' + minutes.substr(-2) + ':' + seconds.substr(-2);

console.log(formattedTime);

For more information regarding the Date object, please refer to MDN or the ECMAScript 5 specification.