Get a string of current time since epoch (seconds) in nginx

Question

In nginx configuration file, what is the best way to get a variable containing string representation of current time in seconds since epoch? Conceptually I want something like this:

$timestamp = <unix_time>;
add_header Time $timestamp;

As requested by a moderator, this is not a duplication of

Is there a way to get the current time in nginx?

as variables $date_gmt and $date_local do not provide seconds-since-epoch format.

Answer 1

As per the docs, it's in the $msec variable.

Answer 2

In fact, the functionality was added to this module:

https://github.com/openresty/set-misc-nginx-module

Sought line would be:

set_formatted_gmt_time $unix_time_str "%s";