How to get correct timestamp in C#

I would like to get valid timestamp in my application so I wrote:

public static String GetTimestamp(DateTime value)
{
    return value.ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmssffff");
}
//  ...later on in the code
String timeStamp = GetTimestamp(new DateTime());
Console.WriteLine(timeStamp);

output:

000101010000000000

I wanted something like:

20140112180244

What have I done wrong?

Solution 1:

Your mistake is using new DateTime(), which returns January 1, 0001 at 00:00:00.000 instead of current date and time. The correct syntax to get current date and time is DateTime.Now, so change this:

String timeStamp = GetTimestamp(new DateTime());

to this:

String timeStamp = GetTimestamp(DateTime.Now);

Solution 2:

var Timestamp = new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.UtcNow).ToUnixTimeSeconds();

Solution 3:

var timestamp = DateTime.Now.ToFileTime();

//output: 132260149842749745

This is an alternative way to individuate distinct transactions. It's not unix time, but windows filetime.

From the docs:

A Windows file time is a 64-bit value that represents the number of 100- 
nanosecond intervals that have elapsed since 12:00 midnight, January 1, 1601 
A.D. (C.E.) Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Solution 4:

For UTC:

string unixTimestamp = Convert.ToString((int)DateTime.UtcNow.Subtract(new DateTime(1970, 1, 1)).TotalSeconds);

For local system:

string unixTimestamp = Convert.ToString((int)DateTime.Now.Subtract(new DateTime(1970, 1, 1)).TotalSeconds);

Solution 5:

Int32 unixTimestamp = (Int32)(TIME.Subtract(new DateTime(1970, 1, 1))).TotalSeconds;

"TIME" is the DateTime object that you would like to get the unix timestamp for.