How do I get the current time in Python?

Question

How do I get the current time in Python?

Hyetology

please note, the most voted answers are for timezonoe-naive datetime, while we see that in production environment more and more services across the world are connected together and timezone-aware datetime become the required standard – Brathwaite

This is a very valid point by @SławomirLenart and here is a quick tutorial showing multiple ways to get the current time based on the timezone – Rearward

Answer 1

Use datetime:

>>> import datetime
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> now
datetime.datetime(2009, 1, 6, 15, 8, 24, 78915)
>>> print(now)
2009-01-06 15:08:24.789150

For just the clock time without the date:

>>> now.time()
datetime.time(15, 8, 24, 78915)
>>> print(now.time())
15:08:24.789150

---

To save typing, you can import the datetime object from the datetime module:

>>> from datetime import datetime

Then remove the prefix datetime. from all of the above.

Quark

It would be nice if this answer covered timezones (maybe UTC as an example) and perhaps begin with time.time(). – Door

@Toskan the format was not part of the question, so it shouldn't be part of the answer. There's already a link provided to more documentation of the module which contains stuff like formatting. – Unawares

Which version of Python was the original answer given in? Just typing datetime.datetime.now() in my Python 2.7 interactive console (IronPython hasn't updated yet) gives me the same behavior as the newer example using print() in the answer. I haven't successfully replicated what the original answer shows (datetime.datetime(2009, 1, 6, 15, 8, 24, 78915)). (Not that I really want to, the print() behavior is preferred, but I am curious.) – Telluric

@BobVicktor: Python 2.7, 3.7 and 3.8 all give the same behaviour for me, not sure what you're seeing. – Quark

@HarleyHolcombe Hmm... maybe it is an IronPython thing? When I type datetime.now() on its own it prints it out the same was as your answer shows print(datetime.now())... – Telluric

Consider import datetime as dt if you want to use other datetime modules, such as datetime.time. – Reggie

@GregLindahl Timezone Aware: datetime.datetime.now(tz=pytz.UTC).astimezone() ... Or, something similar, like the actual timezone where the system is located. Alternately, datetime.datetime.now(datetime.timezone.utc).astimezone() or datetime.datetime.utcnow().astimezone() depending on the Python version and use case. – Mariselamarish

Answer 2

Use time.strftime():

>>> from time import gmtime, strftime
>>> strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", gmtime())
'2009-01-05 22:14:39'

Maximamaximal

Is this better/worse than @ParaMeterz's answer below? Why should we use the time module vs. the datetime module? – Elviraelvis

It doesn't return current hour of my computer. – Marigolde

This is UTC time, different from datetime module – Greylag

@Saeed: Use the function localtime() instead of the gmtime() to get your local time. – Koby

@frank See related question on datetime vs. time. – Priceless

Note: time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S") defaults to use time.localtime(). Also, time.gmtime() sets DST(daylight saving time) flag to 0, whereas time.localtime() sets DST flag to 1 if DST applies to that time. – Ciaracibber

Answer 3

from datetime import datetime
datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

Example output: '2013-09-18 11:16:32'

See list of strftime directives.

Obstetric

Answer 4

Similar to Harley's answer, but use the str() function for a quick-n-dirty, slightly more human readable format:

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> str(datetime.now())
'2011-05-03 17:45:35.177000'

Unitarian

@ppperry, then just simply assign a variable to Ray's answer - like: myTime = str(datetime.now()). – Trews

Not relevant; the "str" step is not within the scope of the question – Foreconscious

@Foreconscious Nor does the op say it isn't about getting a string of the time. The op doesn't say at all what they want to do with the time, so why is it a bad thing to show how to turn it in to a string? Most of the answers talk about getting a string from the time, so it appears to be a common use case, so why single out Ray's answer? What use is simply getting the time without knowing how to do anything with it? You can print it, or do math on it, and only a couple of the answers show how to do math on it, so I think printing/getting a string is a common use. ;-) (I know it is what I came for.) – Telluric

The fact that this answer has more than 440 upvotes suggests that the minor addition of the string method was useful to a lot of people. – Glidden

The fact that 440 people were looking for content that is not an actual answer to the question does not make that content an answer to the question. – Foreconscious

@Foreconscious The fact that it is another way to answer the question which makes it RELEVANT to other people who has a similar question to this question. So there is nothing wrong with this :) – Pinkham

Answer 5

How do I get the current time in Python?

The time module

The time module provides functions that tell us the time in "seconds since the epoch" as well as other utilities.

import time

Unix Epoch Time

This is the format you should get timestamps in for saving in databases. It is a simple floating-point number that can be converted to an integer. It is also good for arithmetic in seconds, as it represents the number of seconds since Jan 1, 1970, 00:00:00, and it is memory light relative to the other representations of time we'll be looking at next:

>>> time.time()
1424233311.771502

This timestamp does not account for leap-seconds, so it's not linear - leap seconds are ignored. So while it is not equivalent to the international UTC standard, it is close, and therefore quite good for most cases of record-keeping.

This is not ideal for human scheduling, however. If you have a future event you wish to take place at a certain point in time, you'll want to store that time with a string that can be parsed into a datetime object or a serialized datetime object (these will be described later).

time.ctime

You can also represent the current time in the way preferred by your operating system (which means it can change when you change your system preferences, so don't rely on this to be standard across all systems, as I've seen others expect). This is typically user friendly, but doesn't typically result in strings one can sort chronologically:

>>> time.ctime()
'Tue Feb 17 23:21:56 2015'

You can hydrate timestamps into human readable form with ctime as well:

>>> time.ctime(1424233311.771502)
'Tue Feb 17 23:21:51 2015'

This conversion is also not good for record-keeping (except in text that will only be parsed by humans - and with improved Optical Character Recognition and Artificial Intelligence, I think the number of these cases will diminish).

datetime module

The datetime module is also quite useful here:

>>> import datetime

datetime.datetime.now

The datetime.now is a class method that returns the current time. It uses the time.localtime without the timezone info (if not given, otherwise see timezone aware below). It has a representation (which would allow you to recreate an equivalent object) echoed on the shell, but when printed (or coerced to a str), it is in human readable (and nearly ISO) format, and the lexicographic sort is equivalent to the chronological sort:

>>> datetime.datetime.now()
datetime.datetime(2015, 2, 17, 23, 43, 49, 94252)
>>> print(datetime.datetime.now())
2015-02-17 23:43:51.782461

datetime's utcnow

You can get a datetime object in UTC time, a global standard, by doing this:

>>> datetime.datetime.utcnow()
datetime.datetime(2015, 2, 18, 4, 53, 28, 394163)
>>> print(datetime.datetime.utcnow())
2015-02-18 04:53:31.783988

UTC is a time standard that is nearly equivalent to the GMT timezone. (While GMT and UTC do not change for Daylight Savings Time, their users may switch to other timezones, like British Summer Time, during the Summer.)

datetime timezone aware

However, none of the datetime objects we've created so far can be easily converted to various timezones. We can solve that problem with the pytz module:

>>> import pytz
>>> then = datetime.datetime.now(pytz.utc)
>>> then
datetime.datetime(2015, 2, 18, 4, 55, 58, 753949, tzinfo=<UTC>)

Equivalently, in Python 3 we have the timezone class with a utc timezone instance attached, which also makes the object timezone aware (but to convert to another timezone without the handy pytz module is left as an exercise to the reader):

>>> datetime.datetime.now(datetime.timezone.utc)
datetime.datetime(2015, 2, 18, 22, 31, 56, 564191, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)

And we see we can easily convert to timezones from the original UTC object.

>>> print(then)
2015-02-18 04:55:58.753949+00:00
>>> print(then.astimezone(pytz.timezone('US/Eastern')))
2015-02-17 23:55:58.753949-05:00

You can also make a naive datetime object aware with the pytz timezone localize method, or by replacing the tzinfo attribute (with replace, this is done blindly), but these are more last resorts than best practices:

>>> pytz.utc.localize(datetime.datetime.utcnow())
datetime.datetime(2015, 2, 18, 6, 6, 29, 32285, tzinfo=<UTC>)
>>> datetime.datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=pytz.utc)
datetime.datetime(2015, 2, 18, 6, 9, 30, 728550, tzinfo=<UTC>)

The pytz module allows us to make our datetime objects timezone aware and convert the times to the hundreds of timezones available in the pytz module.

One could ostensibly serialize this object for UTC time and store that in a database, but it would require far more memory and be more prone to error than simply storing the Unix Epoch time, which I demonstrated first.

The other ways of viewing times are much more error-prone, especially when dealing with data that may come from different time zones. You want there to be no confusion as to which timezone a string or serialized datetime object was intended for.

If you're displaying the time with Python for the user, ctime works nicely, not in a table (it doesn't typically sort well), but perhaps in a clock. However, I personally recommend, when dealing with time in Python, either using Unix time, or a timezone aware UTC datetime object.

Cyril

I think everyone can agree that ctime has got to be the weirdest way of formatting a datetime ever. Abbreviated day of the week and month, day of month, 24 hour h:m:s, and then a four digit year. Nerds that like to sort date strings, Americans, Europeans... everyone - yes, everyone - can find at least two things to be irritated about in that format. Although I'll use it because it's super easy. – Kurtiskurtosis

As I say above regarding ctime: "You can also represent the current time in the way preferred by your operating system (which means it can change when you change your system preferences, so don't rely on this to be standard across all systems, as I've seen others expect). This is typically user friendly, but doesn't typically result in strings one can sort chronologically:" – Cyril

This could be improved by adding a reference to zoneinfo; pytz, although presend on many dependency specs, is outdated since Python 3.9. – Breadfruit

I get a deprecation warning with utcnow(), the way to do it now is datetime.datetime.now(datetime.UTC) – Blaze

@Blaze thanks for pointing out the deprecation warning, I'll update the answer soon on that. – Cyril

Answer 6

Do

from time import time

t = time()

• t - float number, good for time interval measurement.

There is some difference for Unix and Windows platforms.

Immunology

My result on Windows 10 home was 1576095264.2682993 - for Windows, this might just give the time in seconds. – Serf

Answer 7

>>> from time import gmtime, strftime
>>> strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %X +0000", gmtime())
'Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:54:56 +0000'

That outputs the current GMT in the specified format. There is also a localtime() method.

This page has more details.

Electromyography

Answer 8

The previous answers are all good suggestions, but I find it easiest to use ctime():

In [2]: from time import ctime
In [3]: ctime()
Out[3]: 'Thu Oct 31 11:40:53 2013'

This gives a nicely formatted string representation of the current local time.

Blah

This is actually very efficient way to do it. Importing just a function (instead of whole class) consumes less time-space and even helps avoid any potential name-confusion for other functions in the class or stack. – Meadow

Answer 9

The quickest way is:

>>> import time
>>> time.strftime("%Y%m%d")
'20130924'

Liggett

Answer 10

If you need current time as a time object:

>>> import datetime
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> datetime.time(now.hour, now.minute, now.second)
datetime.time(11, 23, 44)

Leopoldeen

Answer 11

You can use the time module:

>>> import time
>>> print(time.strftime("%d/%m/%Y"))
06/02/2015

The use of the capital Y gives the full year, and using y would give 06/02/15.

You could also use the following code to give a more lengthy time:

>>> time.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S")
'Fri, 06 Feb 2015 17:45:09'

Rattan

Answer 12

.isoformat() is in the documentation, but not yet here (this is mighty similar to @Ray Vega's answer):

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.now().isoformat()
'2013-06-24T20:35:55.982000'

Markley

Answer 13

Why not ask the U.S. Naval Observatory, the official timekeeper of the United States Navy?

import requests
from lxml import html

page = requests.get('http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/timer.pl')
tree = html.fromstring(page.content)
print(tree.xpath('//html//body//h3//pre/text()')[1])

If you live in the D.C. area (like me) the latency might not be too bad...

Lowney

@Lowney While you are correct that the other answers assume that your computer already knows the correct time, this answer assumes that the computer has a connection to the internet, that you are in the U.S., and that they will never take down that file/alter the link. Far more assumptions in this answer than accepted. Still clever none the less – Jamilla

Excellent to have another source for time than the builtin clock! Even a good alternative to the more logical choice of NTP. – Apologia

Site is no longer available $ curl tycho.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/timer.pl curl: (6) Could not resolve host: tycho.usno.navy.mil – Recollect

Answer 14

Using pandas to get the current time, kind of overkilling the problem at hand:

import pandas as pd
print(pd.datetime.now())
print(pd.datetime.now().date())
print(pd.datetime.now().year)
print(pd.datetime.now().month)
print(pd.datetime.now().day)
print(pd.datetime.now().hour)
print(pd.datetime.now().minute)
print(pd.datetime.now().second)
print(pd.datetime.now().microsecond)

Output:

2017-09-22 12:44:56.092642
2017-09-22
2017
9
22
12
44
56
92693

Conformal

This method will be deprecated in future versions of pandas. Use the datetime module instead. – Dillion

Answer 15

if you are using numpy already then directly you can use numpy.datetime64() function.

import numpy as np
str(np.datetime64('now'))

for only date:

str(np.datetime64('today'))

or, if you are using pandas already then you can use pandas.to_datetime() function

import pandas as pd
str(pd.to_datetime('now'))

or,

str(pd.to_datetime('today'))

Linlithgow

Answer 16

This is what I ended up going with:

>>>from time import strftime
>>>strftime("%m/%d/%Y %H:%M")
01/09/2015 13:11

Also, this table is a necessary reference for choosing the appropriate format codes to get the date formatted just the way you want it (from Python "datetime" documentation here).

Omora

strftime(time_format) returns the current local time as a string that corresponds to the given time_format. Note: time.strftime() and datetime.strftime() support different directive sets e.g., %z is not supported by time.strftime() on Python 2. – Morganica

Is it better practice to use datetime instead of time? – Omora

Many time module functions are thin wrappers around corresponding C functions. datetime is a higher level and it is usually more portable. – Morganica

Answer 17

datetime.now() returns the current time as a naive datetime object that represents time in the local timezone. That value may be ambiguous e.g., during DST transitions ("fall back"). To avoid ambiguity either UTC timezone should be used:

from datetime import datetime

utc_time = datetime.utcnow()
print(utc_time) # -> 2014-12-22 22:48:59.916417

Or a timezone-aware object that has the corresponding timezone info attached (Python 3.2+):

from datetime import datetime, timezone

now = datetime.now(timezone.utc).astimezone()
print(now) # -> 2014-12-23 01:49:25.837541+03:00

Morganica

FYI, it is not recommended to use datetime.utcnow() to represent the current time in UTC as that still returns a 'naive' datetime object -- instead, it is recommended to use datetime.now(timezone.utc) as that returns an 'aware' datetime object. See the Python docs for more details: docs.python.org/3/library/… – Dabster

@Dabster notice that the Python 3.2+ solution uses timezone.utc already. Perhaps, now that Python 2.7 is EOLed the naive-datetime may be dropped – Morganica

Ah, I didn't realize that was there purely for compatibility with Python 2.7 -- perhaps that should be clarified in the post? At least to me, it seemed like this post was implying that both the naive and aware methods were (still) equally acceptable ways to get the UTC time, which is why I pointed out that that's not what Python's (latest) documentation says. – Dabster

Answer 18

>>> import datetime, time
>>> time = time.strftime("%H:%M:%S:%MS", time.localtime())
>>> print time
'00:21:38:20S'

Paco

I think you mean to say "datetime.now().strftime(...)" – Housekeeping

yes it can be done as you said. "datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%H:%M:%S:%MS")" – Paco

%MS does not give you milliseconds!! – Thorny

Answer 19

import datetime
date_time = datetime.datetime.now()

date = date_time.date()  # Gives the date
time = date_time.time()  # Gives the time

print date.year, date.month, date.day
print time.hour, time.minute, time.second, time.microsecond

Do dir(date) or any variables including the package. You can get all the attributes and methods associated with the variable.

Marivelmariya

@snofty and @user1016274, if import datetime then it is datetime.datetime.now()\n if from datetime import datetime then it is datetime.now() – Marivelmariya

Answer 20

This question doesn't need a new answer just for the sake of it ... a shiny new-ish toy/module, however, is enough justification. That being the Pendulum library, which appears to do the sort of things which arrow attempted, except without the inherent flaws and bugs which beset arrow.

For instance, the answer to the original question:

>>> import pendulum
>>> print(pendulum.now())
2018-08-14T05:29:28.315802+10:00
>>> print(pendulum.now('utc'))
2018-08-13T19:29:35.051023+00:00

There's a lot of standards which need addressing, including multiple RFCs and ISOs, to worry about. Ever get them mixed up; not to worry, take a little look into dir(pendulum.constants) There's a bit more than RFC and ISO formats there, though.

When we say local, though what do we mean? Well I mean:

>>> print(pendulum.now().timezone_name)
Australia/Melbourne
>>>

Presumably most of the rest of you mean somewhere else.

And on it goes. Long story short: Pendulum attempts to do for date and time what requests did for HTTP. It's worth consideration, particularly for both its ease of use and extensive documentation.

Premeditation

Answer 21

By default, now() function returns output in the YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS:MS format. Use the below sample script to get the current date and time in a Python script and print results on the screen. Create file getDateTime1.py with the below content.

import datetime

currentDT = datetime.datetime.now()
print (str(currentDT))

The output looks like below:

2018-03-01 17:03:46.759624

Cognizable

Answer 22

Try the arrow module from http://crsmithdev.com/arrow/:

import arrow
arrow.now()

Or the UTC version:

arrow.utcnow()

To change its output, add .format():

arrow.utcnow().format('YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss ZZ')

For a specific timezone:

arrow.now('US/Pacific')

An hour ago:

arrow.utcnow().replace(hours=-1)

Or if you want the gist.

arrow.get('2013-05-11T21:23:58.970460+00:00').humanize()
>>> '2 years ago'

Mesial

beware that arrow.now('Time/Zone') may fail for some timezones (arrow uses dateutil that has broken utc -> local conversions that are used inside arrow.now(). Note: pytz has no such issue. Also, there are other timezone-related issues – Morganica

Answer 23

To get exactly 3 decimal points for milliseconds 11:34:23.751 run this:

def get_time_str(decimal_points=3):
        return time.strftime("%H:%M:%S", time.localtime()) + '.%d' % (time.time() % 1 * 10**decimal_points)

More context:

I want to get the time with milliseconds. A simple way to get them:

import time, datetime

print(datetime.datetime.now().time())                         # 11:20:08.272239

# Or in a more complicated way
print(datetime.datetime.now().time().isoformat())             # 11:20:08.272239
print(datetime.datetime.now().time().strftime('%H:%M:%S.%f')) # 11:20:08.272239

# But do not use this:
print(time.strftime("%H:%M:%S.%f", time.localtime()), str)    # 11:20:08.%f

But I want only milliseconds, right? The shortest way to get them:

import time

time.strftime("%H:%M:%S", time.localtime()) + '.%d' % (time.time() % 1 * 1000)
# 11:34:23.751

Add or remove zeroes from the last multiplication to adjust number of decimal points, or just:

def get_time_str(decimal_points=3):
    return time.strftime("%H:%M:%S", time.localtime()) + '.%d' % (time.time() % 1 * 10**decimal_points)

Typical

This works in Python 3: time.strftime("%H:%M:%S", time.localtime()) + '.{}'.format(int(time.time() % 1 * 1000)) – Undistinguished

Answer 24

Current time of a timezone

from datetime import datetime
import pytz

tz_NY = pytz.timezone('America/New_York') 
datetime_NY = datetime.now(tz_NY)
print("NY time:", datetime_NY.strftime("%H:%M:%S"))

tz_London = pytz.timezone('Europe/London')
datetime_London = datetime.now(tz_London)
print("London time:", datetime_London.strftime("%H:%M:%S"))

tz_India = pytz.timezone('Asia/India')
datetime_India = datetime.now(tz_India)
print("India time:", datetime_India.strftime("%H:%M:%S"))

#list timezones
pytz.all_timezones

Iridissa

Answer 25

You can use this function to get the time (unfortunately it doesn't say AM or PM):

def gettime():
    from datetime import datetime
    return ((str(datetime.now())).split(' ')[1]).split('.')[0]

To get the hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds to merge later, you can use these functions:

Hour:

def gethour():
    from datetime import datetime
    return (((str(datetime.now())).split(' ')[1]).split('.')[0]).split(':')[0]

Minute:

def getminute():
    from datetime import datetime
    return (((str(datetime.now())).split(' ')[1]).split('.')[0]).split(':')[1]

Second:

def getsecond():
    from datetime import datetime
    return (((str(datetime.now())).split(' ')[1]).split('.')[0]).split(':')[2]

Millisecond:

def getmillisecond():
    from datetime import datetime
    return (str(datetime.now())).split('.')[1]

Dian

Answer 26

If you just want the current timestamp in ms (for example, to measure execution time), you can also use the "timeit" module:

import timeit
start_time = timeit.default_timer()
do_stuff_you_want_to_measure()
end_time = timeit.default_timer()
print("Elapsed time: {}".format(end_time - start_time))

Tuff

Answer 27

You can try the following

import datetime

now = datetime.datetime.now()
print(now)

or

import datetime

now = datetime.datetime.now()
print(now.strftime("%Y-%b-%d, %A %I:%M:%S"))

Coarctate

Answer 28

Because no one has mentioned it yet, and this is something I ran into recently... a pytz timezone's fromutc() method combined with datetime's utcnow() is the best way I've found to get a useful current time (and date) in any timezone.

from datetime import datetime

import pytz


JST = pytz.timezone("Asia/Tokyo")


local_time = JST.fromutc(datetime.utcnow())

If all you want is the time, you can then get that with local_time.time().

Insolation

Surprisingly, All the above answers didnt mention Time zones. you should also include strftime to get the format you wanted. – Confiding

I didn't include that since it's already been covered in other answers (and display formatting wasn't part of the question). – Insolation

Answer 29

import datetime

todays_date = datetime.date.today()
print(todays_date)
>>> 2019-10-12

# adding strftime will remove the seconds
current_time = datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%H:%M')
print(current_time)
>>> 23:38

Prosperous

Answer 30

Method1: Getting Current Date and Time from system datetime

The datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times.

Code

from datetime import datetime,date

print("Date: "+str(date.today().year)+"-"+str(date.today().month)+"-"+str(date.today().day))
print("Year: "+str(date.today().year))
print("Month: "+str(date.today().month))
print("Day: "+str(date.today().day)+"\n")

print("Time: "+str(datetime.today().hour)+":"+str(datetime.today().minute)+":"+str(datetime.today().second))
print("Hour: "+str(datetime.today().hour))
print("Minute: "+str(datetime.today().minute))
print("Second: "+str(datetime.today().second))
print("MilliSecond: "+str(datetime.today().microsecond))

Output will be like

Date: 2020-4-18
Year: 2020
Month: 4
Day: 18

Time: 19:30:5
Hour: 19
Minute: 30
Second: 5
MilliSecond: 836071

Method2: Getting Current Date and Time if Network is available

urllib package helps us to handle the url's that means webpages. Here we collects data from the webpage http://just-the-time.appspot.com/ and parses dateime from the webpage using the package dateparser.

Code

from urllib.request import urlopen
import dateparser

time_url = urlopen(u'http://just-the-time.appspot.com/')
datetime = time_url.read().decode("utf-8", errors="ignore").split(' ')[:-1]
date = datetime[0]
time = datetime[1]

print("Date: "+str(date))
print("Year: "+str(date.split('-')[0]))
print("Month: "+str(date.split('-')[1]))
print("Day: "+str(date.split('-')[2])+'\n')

print("Time: "+str(time))
print("Hour: "+str(time.split(':')[0]))
print("Minute: "+str(time.split(':')[1]))
print("Second: "+str(time.split(':')[2]))

Output will be like

Date: 2020-04-18
Year: 2020
Month: 04
Day: 18

Time: 14:17:10
Hour: 14
Minute: 17
Second: 10

Method3: Getting Current Date and Time from Local Time of the Machine

Python's time module provides a function for getting local time from the number of seconds elapsed since the epoch called localtime(). ctime() function takes seconds passed since epoch as an argument and returns a string representing local time.

Code

from time import time, ctime
datetime = ctime(time()).split(' ')

print("Date: "+str(datetime[4])+"-"+str(datetime[1])+"-"+str(datetime[2]))
print("Year: "+str(datetime[4]))
print("Month: "+str(datetime[1]))
print("Day: "+str(datetime[2]))
print("Week Day: "+str(datetime[0])+'\n')

print("Time: "+str(datetime[3]))
print("Hour: "+str(datetime[3]).split(':')[0])
print("Minute: "+str(datetime[3]).split(':')[1])
print("Second: "+str(datetime[3]).split(':')[2])

Output will be like

Date: 2020-Apr-18
Year: 2020
Month: Apr
Day: 18
Week Day: Sat

Time: 19:30:20
Hour: 19
Minute: 30
Second: 20

Continue

Answer 31

You can do so using ctime():

from time import time, ctime
t = time()
ctime(t)

output:

Sat Sep 14 21:27:08 2019

These outputs are different because the timestamp returned by ctime() depends on your geographical location.

Trudi

Answer 32

try this one:-

from datetime import datetime

now = datetime.now()

current_time = now.strftime("%H:%M:%S")
print("Current Time =", current_time)

Lox

Answer 33

import datetime
date_time = str(datetime.datetime.now()).split()
date,time = date_time

date will print date and time will print time.

Breadbasket

Answer 34

The following is what I use to get the time without having to format. Some people don't like the split method, but it is useful here:

from time import ctime
print ctime().split()[3]

It will print in HH:MM:SS format.

Cabbageworm

Answer 35

This question is for Python but since Django is one of the most widely used frameworks for Python, its important to note that if you are using Django you can always use timezone.now() instead of datetime.datetime.now(). The former is timezone 'aware' while the latter is not.

See this SO answer and the Django doc for details and rationale behind timezone.now().

from django.utils import timezone

now = timezone.now()

Wyon

Answer 36

This is so simple. Try:

import datetime
date_time = str(datetime.datetime.now())
date = date_time.split()[0]
time = date_time.split()[1]

Wrist

Answer 37

There are a lot of methods for getting current time in python in different formats.

I have listed all, you can use them according to your needs.

By Datetime method

from datetime import datetime

now = datetime.now()

current_time = now.strftime("%H:%M:%S")
print("Current Time =", current_time)

Output: Current Time = 07:41:19

Current time using time module

import time

t = time.localtime()
current_time = time.strftime("%H:%M:%S", t)
print(current_time)

Tue Jul 12 10:37:46 2022

Want time of a certain timezone? try this.

from datetime import datetime
import pytz

# Get the timezone object for New York
tz_NY = pytz.timezone('America/New_York') 

# Get the current time in New York
datetime_NY = datetime.now(tz_NY)

# Format the time as a string and print it
print("NY time:", datetime_NY.strftime("%H:%M:%S"))

# Get the timezone object for London
tz_London = pytz.timezone('Europe/London')

# Get the current time in London
datetime_London = datetime.now(tz_London)

# Format the time as a string and print it
print("London time:", datetime_London.strftime("%H:%M:%S"))

NY time: 03:45:16

London time: 08:45:16

UTC(Coordinated Universal Time)

from datetime import datetime

print("UTC Time: ", datetime.utcnow())

UTC Time: 2022-06-20 11:10:18.289111

ISO Format

from datetime import datetime as dt

x = dt.now().isoformat()
print('Current ISO:', x)

Current ISO: 2022-06-20T17:03:23.299672

EPOCH time

import time

print("Epoch Time is : ", int(time.time()))

Epoch Time is : 1655723915

Getting Current GMT (Green Mean Time) using time

import time

# current GMT Time
gmt_time = time.gmtime(time.time())

print('Current GMT Time:\n', gmt_time)

Current GMT Time: time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=20, tm_hour=11, tm_min=24, tm_sec=59, tm_wday=0, tm_yday=171, tm_isdst=0)

FYI

• time is more accurate than datetime because if you don’t want ambiguity with daylight savings time (DST), use time.
• datetime has more built-in objects you can work with but has limited support for time zones.
• UTC: is a helpful reference when working with applications that require a global user to log events.
• EPOCH: For Operating systems and file formats.
• ISO format: to avoid any problems in communicating the date and time related data all around the world.
• Greenmeantime: The USA had already decided to base its own national time zone scheme on Greenwich and countries like Ireland, Canada also consider their reference as GMT.

Jataka

What exactly is the difference to this answer for instance? Btw. you're not up-to-date; we have time zone handling in the standard library, see zoneinfo. – Breadfruit

Answer 38

from time import ctime

// Day {Mon,Tue,..}
print ctime().split()[0]
// Month {Jan, Feb,..}
print ctime().split()[1]
// Date {1,2,..}
print ctime().split()[2]
// HH:MM:SS
print ctime().split()[3]
// Year {2018,..}
print ctime().split()[4]

When you call ctime() it will convert seconds to string in format 'Day Month Date HH:MM:SS Year' (for example: 'Wed January 17 16:53:22 2018'), then you call split() method that will make a list from your string ['Wed','Jan','17','16:56:45','2018'] (default delimeter is space).

Brackets are used to 'select' wanted argument in list.

One should call just one code line. One should not call them like I did, that was just an example, because in some cases you will get different values, rare but not impossible cases.

Dugaid

You might also want to explain why extracting parts from multiple calls of ctime() like that (using "current" time at each call) will not necessarily give a useful value in combination with each other. – Scurvy

What is // doing here? – Mattison

Answer 39

Get current date time attributes:

import datetime

currentDT = datetime.datetime.now()

print ("Current Year is: %d" % currentDT.year)
print ("Current Month is: %d" % currentDT.month)
print ("Current Day is: %d" % currentDT.day)
print ("Current Hour is: %d" % currentDT.hour)
print ("Current Minute is: %d" % currentDT.minute)
print ("Current Second is: %d" % currentDT.second)
print ("Current Microsecond is: %d" % currentDT.microsecond)


#!/usr/bin/python
import time;

ticks = time.time()
print "Number of ticks since "12:00am, Jan 1, 1970":", ticks

Abidjan

Answer 40

First import the datetime module from datetime

from datetime import datetime

Then print the current time as 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss'

print(str(datetime.now())

To get only the time in the form 'hh:mm:ss' where ss stands for the full number of seconds plus the fraction of seconds elapsed, just do;

print(str(datetime.now()[11:])

Converting the datetime.now() to a string yields an answer that is in the format that feels like the regular DATES AND TIMES we are used to.

Flimflam

Answer 41

The time module can import all sorts of time stuff, inculduing sleep and other types of stuff including - the current time type

import time
time.strftime("%T", time.localtime())

The output should look like this

05:46:33
11:22:56
13:44:55
22:33:44
00:00:00

Maxi

Answer 42

we can accomplish that Using datetime module

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> now = datetime.now() #get a datetime object containing current date and time
>>> current_time = now.strftime("%H:%M:%S") #created a string representing current time
>>> print("Current Time =", current_time)
Current Time = 17:56:54

In addition, we can get the current time of time zome using pytZ module.

>>> from pytz import timezone
>>> import pytz
>>> eastern = timezone('US/Eastern')
>>> eastern.zone
'US/Eastern'
>>> amsterdam = timezone('Europe/Amsterdam')
>>> datetime_eu = datetime.now(amsterdam)
>>> print("Europe time::", datetime_eu.strftime("%H:%M:%S"))
Europe time:: 14:45:31

Inspector

Answer 43

From Python 3.9, the zoneinfo module can be used for getting timezones rather than using a third party library.

To get the current time in a particular timezone:

from datetime import datetime
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo

datetime.now(tz=ZoneInfo("Europe/Amsterdam"))

Brobdingnagian

The latest version of Python available for download is 3.8.5! python.org/downloads – Donnettedonni

Sure, but in the future, when other people are reading this, that won't be the case. In fact, the first release candidate was released today: docs.python.org/3.9/whatsnew/3.9.html – Brobdingnagian

Answer 44

import datetime

print('date='+datetime.datetime.now().__str__().split(' ')[0]+' '+'time='+datetime.datetime.now().__str__().split(' ')[1]

Since Qt is used extensively,

from PyQt5 import QDateTime
print(QDateTime.currentDateTime().__str__().split('(')[1].rstrip(')'))

Babita

Compared to the other answers, yours is quit long and complex – Wetzel

@Molitoris, it is advised to (re)use the functions available from already imported libraries. So, this is useful for those who are already working on Qt-Python. – Meadow

Answer 45

If you using it for django datetime sometimes won't work on server so I recommend using timezone

But for use django timezone you should set your country timezone code in your settings.py

TIME_ZONE = 'Asia/Tashkent'

Then you can use it

from django.utils import timezone

timezone.now() // for date time

timezone.now().year // for yaer

timezone.now().month // for month

timezone.now().day // for day 

timezone.now().date // for date

timezone.now().hour // for hour

timezone.now().weekday // for minute

or if you want use on python

import time

time.strftime('%X') // '13:12:47'

time.strftime('%x') // '01/20/22'

time.strftime('%d') // '20' day

time.strftime('%m') // '01' month

time.strftime('%y') // '20' year

time.strftime('%H') // '01' hour

time.strftime('%M') // '01' minute

time.strftime('%m') // '01' second

Dendy

Your example may cause bad programming. strftime() or now() should never be used multiple times. If you use that method at 23:59:59 your result may mix data from 2 different days. – Precisian

Thanks for your attention, but the question is not about using multiple times it's about getting the time. here I showed how to get not only time others too. – Dendy

Answer 46

If you use pandas a lot you can use Timestamp, which is the equivalent of Python’s Datetime:

In [1]: import pandas as pd

In [2]: pd.Timestamp.now()
Out[2]: Timestamp('2022-06-21 21:52:50.568788')

And just the time:

In [3]: pd.Timestamp.now().strftime("%H:%M:%S")
Out[3]: '21:53:01'

Ruthenious

Solution is valid, but it is an overkill to have pandas dependency just for getting current time. – Perish

Yeah, it's meant for people who use pandas on a daily basis and therefore already imported the library. – Ruthenious

Answer 47

There are so many complex solutions here it could be confusing for a beginner. I find this is the most simple solution to the question - as it just returns the current time as asked (no frills):

import datetime

time_now = datetime.datetime.now()

display_time = time_now.strftime("%H:%M")
print(display_time)

If you wanted more detail back than just the current time, you can do what some others have suggested here:

import datetime

time_now = datetime.datetime.now()
print(time_now)

Although this approach is shorter to write, it returns the current date and milliseconds as well, which may not be required when simply looking to return the current time.

Asyllabic

Answer 48

If you want the time for purpose of timing function calls, then you want time.perf_counter().

start_time = time.perf_counter()
expensive_function()
time_taken = time.perf_counter() - start_time
print(f'expensive_function() took {round(time_taken,2)}s')

time.perf_counter() → float

Return the value (in fractional seconds) of a performance counter, i.e. a clock with the highest available resolution to measure a short duration. It does include time elapsed during sleep and is system-wide. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of consecutive calls is valid.

New in version 3.3.

---

time.perf_counter_ns() → int

Similar to perf_counter(), but return time as nanoseconds.

New in version 3.7.

• https://docs.python.org/3/library/time.html#time.perf_counter

Backpedal

Answer 49

Attributes of now() can be used to get the current time in python:

# importing datetime module for now()
import datetime
    
# using now() to get current time
current_time = datetime.datetime.now()
    
# Printing attributes of 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)
    
print ("Hour : ", end = "")
print (current_time.hour)
    
print ("Minute : ", end = "")
print (current_time.minute)
    
print ("Second : ", end = "")
print (current_time.second)
    
print ("Microsecond : ", end = "")
print (current_time.microsecond)

Soffit

Answer 50

Here's the code which will only show time according to your question:

 from datetime import datetime
 time= datetime.now()
 b = time.strftime("%H:%M:%S")
 print(b)

• Used datetime.now() to get the current date and time.
• Then used .strftime to get desired value i.e time only.

strftime is used to retrieve the desired output or to change the default format according to our need.

Selfhood

Answer 51

Use this method for UTC DateTime, local Date-Time, and convert am and pm

import pytz
from datetime import datetime

#UTC Time
print("UTC Date and time")
epoch: datetime =datetime.now().replace(tzinfo=pytz.utc)
print(epoch)

#local date and time
print("Local Date and time")
today = datetime.now()
local_time = today.strftime("%Y-%M-%d:%H:%M:%S")
print(local_time)

#convert time to AM PM format
print("Date and time AM and PM")
now = today.strftime("%Y-%M-%d:%I:%M %p")
print(now)

Fantasia

Downvote for using the deprecated pytz, compounded by the fact that there also is a datetime.timezone.utc. – Qua

Answer 52

Gets the current time and converts it to string:

from datetime import datetime
datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

Shani

Answer 53

import datetime
import pytz # for timezone()
import time

current_time1 = datetime.datetime.now()
current_time2 = datetime.datetime.now(pytz.timezone('Asia/Taipei'))
current_time3 = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
current_time4 = datetime.datetime.now().isoformat()
current_time5 = time.gmtime(time.time())

print("datetime.datetime.now():", current_time1)
print("datetime.datetime.now(pytz.timezone('Asia/Taipei')):", current_time2)
print("datetime.utcnow():", current_time3)
print("datetime.datetime.now().isoformat():", current_time4)
print('time.gmtime(time.time()): ', current_time5)

Fantastic

There are, already, 52 other answers posted. How would your code block with no commentary contribute something new to the discussion? – Scimitar

Answer 54

If you need a time-zone aware solution. I like to use the following 5 lines of code to get the current time.

from datetime import datetime
import pytz

# Specify the timezone
my_time_zone = pytz.timezone('Asia/Singapore')

# Pass the timezone to datetime.now() function
my_time = datetime.now(my_time_zone)

# Convert the type `my_time` to string with '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S' format.
current_time = my_time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') # current_time would be something like 2023-01-23 14:09:48

You can find the list of all timezones using pytz.all_timezones.

The meaning of the symbols in %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S can be found in geeksforgeeks Python strftime() function

Milburt

Btw. we have time zone handling in the standard library, see zoneinfo. – Breadfruit