DuckDB’s epoch() function is a useful time conversion tool that allows us to transform timestamp values into Unix epoch time – the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970 (UTC).

The function is particularly useful when working with time-series data and when we need to perform mathematical operations on timestamp values. By converting timestamps to integer representations, we can easily calculate time differences, group time-based data, or integrate with systems that use epoch time.

DuckDB provides us with a good selection of functions for working with date/time values. Among them is date_part(), which we can use to extract specific components from dates, timestamps, and intervals.

In this article, we’ll look how the date_part() function works, along with some basic examples.

DuckDB offers a variety of date functions, one of which is the extract() function. This function is designed to retrieve a specific date part from a date or timestamp value, and it can also be applied to intervals.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the extract() function and provide some straightforward examples to illustrate how it works.

Both AGE() and DATE_DIFF() are DuckDB functions used to calculate time differences, but they serve distinct purposes and exhibit different behaviors that are important to understand when working with temporal data.

This article explores the difference between these two functions.