Convert Unix timestamp to a date string

With date from GNU coreutils you can do:

date -d "@$TIMESTAMP"

# date -d @0
Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 EST 1969

(From: BASH: Convert Unix Timestamp to a Date)

On OS X, use date -r.

date -r "$TIMESTAMP"

Alternatively, use strftime(). It's not available directly from the shell, but you can access it via gawk. The %c specifier displays the timestamp in a locale-dependent manner.

echo "$TIMESTAMP" | gawk '{print strftime("%c", $0)}'

# echo 0 | gawk '{print strftime("%c", $0)}'
Wed 31 Dec 1969 07:00:00 PM EST

date -d @1278999698 +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S' Where the number behind @ is the number in seconds