How to convert function to return epoch time 3 hours later?

[brdr]

Here is my date format I would like to convert to epoch for later processing.

My date formate is: 3/5/2018 17:03
My commands below:

| gentimes start=-1 | eval myDate="3/5/2018 17:03" 
| convert timeformat="%m/%d/%Y %H:%M" mktime(myDate) as epoch
| table epoch 

Yields epoch of 1520287380, which is March 5, 2018 10:03:00 PM

Any idea why it calculates 3 hours ahead?

NOTE: I have set my timezone to my location.

[brdr]

I did set my timezone appropriately in my account settings. Logged out and back in and tried with no affect. But the solution you provided is perfect! thx.

[damien_chillet]

Converted my command to an answer,
Could you please accept it to close the question?

[damien_chillet · Accepted solution]

1520287380 is March 5, 2018 10:03:00 PM GMT
Splunk assumes that myDate's timezone is the one you indicated in your account settings before converting to epoch.

If you do, the following, you will see epoch match the date because you specified GMT timezone

| gentimes start=-1 | eval myDate="3/5/2018 17:03 +0000" 
 | convert timeformat="%m/%d/%Y %H:%M %z" mktime(myDate) as epoch
 | table epoch 

[brdr]

yes, when it is converted back it converts to same as myDate. I'm not 3 hours behind gmt,

[damien_chillet]

17:03 is 5PM so that would be 5 hours behind GMT 🙂

[maciep]

isn't epoch in gmt? Are you 3 hours behind gmt? If you do ... | convert ctime(epoch), does it convert it back to your timezone correctly?