In this article, you will learn to get today's date and current date and time in Python. We will also format the date and time in different formats using strftime[] method.
Video: Dates and Times in Python
There are a number of ways you can take to get the current date. We will use the
date
class of the datetime module to accomplish this task.
Example 1: Python get today's date
from datetime import date
today = date.today[]
print["Today's date:", today]
Here, we imported the date
class from the datetime
module. Then, we used the date.today[]
method to get the current local date.
By the way, date.today[]
returns a date
object, which is assigned to the today variable in the above
program. Now, you can use the strftime[] method to create a string representing date in different formats.
Example 2: Current date in different formats
from datetime import date
today = date.today[]
# dd/mm/YY
d1 = today.strftime["%d/%m/%Y"]
print["d1 =", d1]
# Textual month, day and year
d2 = today.strftime["%B %d, %Y"]
print["d2 =", d2]
# mm/dd/y
d3 = today.strftime["%m/%d/%y"]
print["d3 =", d3]
# Month abbreviation, day and year
d4 = today.strftime["%b-%d-%Y"]
print["d4 =", d4]
When you run the program, the output will be something like:
d1 = 16/09/2019 d2 = September 16, 2019 d3 = 09/16/19 d4 = Sep-16-2019
If you need to get the current date and time, you can use datetime
class of the datetime
module.
Example 3: Get the current date and time
from datetime import datetime
# datetime object containing current date and time
now = datetime.now[]
print["now =", now]
# dd/mm/YY H:M:S
dt_string = now.strftime["%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S"]
print["date and time =", dt_string]
You will gate output like below.
now = 2021-06-25 07:58:56.550604 date and time = 25/06/2021 07:58:56
Here, we have used datetime.now[]
to get the current date and time. Then, we used strftime[]
to create a string representing date and time in another format.
Prerequisite: DateTime module
In Python, Date and Time are not data types of their own, but a module named DateTime can be imported to work with the date as well as time. Datetime module comes built into Python, so there is no need to install it externally. The DateTime module provides some functions to get the current date as well as time.
Get the current date using date.today[]
The today[] method of date class under DateTime module returns a date object which contains the value of Today’s date.
Syntax: date.today[]
Returns: Return the current local date.
Example:
Python3
from
datetime
import
date
today
=
date.today[]
print
[
"Today date is: "
, today]
Output:
Today date is: 2019-12-11
Get the current date using datetime.now[]
Python library defines a function that can be primarily used to get the current time and datetime.now[] function and return the current local date and time, which is defined under the DateTime module.
Syntax: datetime.now[tz]
Parameters : tz : Specified time zone of which current time and date is required. [Uses Greenwich Meridian time by default.] Returns : Returns the current date and time in time format.
Example:
Python3
from
datetime
import
datetime
now
=
datetime.now[]
print
[
"now = "
, now]
Output:
now = 2019-12-11 10:58:37.039404
Attributes of now[]
The now[] has different attributes, same as attributes of time such as year, month, date, hour, minute, and second.
Example
Python3
import
datetime
current_time
=
datetime.datetime.now[]
print
[
"The attributes of now[] are : "
]
print
[
"Year: "
, end
=
""]
print
[current_time.year]
print
[
"Month: "
, end
=
""]
print
[current_time.month]
print
[
"Day: "
, end
=
""]
print
[current_time.day]
Output:
The attributes of now[] are: Year: 2019 Month: 12 Day: 11
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES – Get Current Date and Time using Python