> > is it time, or just a number? > Yes :) > That's the beauty of it: time is just a number (of seconds since 1 January 1970). > > Which scalar data type sho

> > is it time, or just a number? > Yes :) > That's the beauty of it: time is just a number (of seconds since 1 January 1970). > > Which scalar data type should your parser use? > Integer, since it's an integer number of seconds. > > And is it seconds since epoch or milliseconds since epoch? > Unix time is always seconds. Whilst time can indeed be modelled as "just a number", Unix time spectacularly fails to achieve even that. * It can go backwards * Simple subtractions do not give accurate intervals It's not a good measure of time. Don't use it as such.