Python Program to Get Current Date in List

Get Current Date Using Python

In this article, we will be taking a look at how to get the current date in Python.

Introduction

There might be times when you want to get the current date and use it in your program. For example, you might want to create a file with the current date in its name. Or you might want to log the current date and time to the console.

Whatever the reason, there are different ways to get the current date in Python. In this article, we will take a look at some of these ways.

Time, as well as Date, are not data types in  Python. There is a module termed DateTime which can be loaded to operate with both the date as well as the time. There is no requirement to import the Datetime package outside because it is built into Python. The DateTime module has some methods for obtaining the current date and time.

Prerequisites

To follow this guide, you will need:

• Python 3 installed on your local machine.
• Access to the terminal/command line.
• A text editor. If you don't have one installed, we recommend using Visual Studio Code.

Different Ways to Get Current Date in Python

There are a few different ways to get the current date in Python. We will go through some of these ways in this section.

1. Python gets today's date using date.today() method
2. Python gets current date in different formats using today.strftime() method.
3. The now().date() method in Python can also be used to utilized to get the current date as well as time.

Using date.today()

The date.today() method returns the current date as a date object containing the present day's date.

Syntax

Parameters

This method doesn't take any parameters.

Return

The current local date is returned as an output.

Example

Let's take a look at an example.

Code:

Output:

Output Explanation:

In this example, we imported the date class from the datetime module. We then used the date.today() method to get the current date and printed it to the console.

As you can see, the current date is printed as 2022-10-24.

Using datetime.now()

The datetime.now() method returns the current date and time as a datetime object.

Syntax

datetime.now()

Return

Returns the current date and time.

Attributes of now() method

The now() method has the following attributes:

• now().year: Returns the year
• now().month: Returns the month
• now().day: Returns the day
• now().hour: Returns the hour
• now().minute: Returns the minute
• now().second: Returns the second
• now().microsecond: Returns the microsecond

Example1

Let's take a look at an example.

Code

Output

Output Explanation:

In this example, we imported the datetime class from the datetime module. We then used the datetime.now() method to get the current date and time and printed it to the console.

As you can see, the output is printed as 2020-05-28 16:51:23.026663. This includes the date, time in the format of hour:minutes:seconds.

Exmaple2

Let's take a look at an example

Code:

Output

Output Explanation:

In this example, we imported the datetime class from the datetime module. We then used the datetime.now() method to get the current date and time and printed it to the console. now() provides a set of attributes, and each attribute represents a particular unit of the current timestamp. Using .year provides the current year, using .month provides the current month, the .day provides the current day, and so on.

Using now().date() Method

A now().date() method is used to access the local or current date of the system by importing the datetime module in Python. If you only want the date and not the time, you can use the now().date() method. This method returns the current date.

Syntax

datetime.now().date()

Parameters

This method doesn't take any parameters.

Return

Returns the current date.

Example

Let's take a look at an example.

Code

Output

Output Explanation:

In this example, we imported the datetime class from the datetime module. We then used the datetime.now().date() method to get the current date and printed it to the console.

As you can see, the output is printed as 2022-10-24. This is the current date.

Date and Time Formats in Python

In Python, you can use different ways to format the date and time. For example, you can use the strftime() method.

The strftime() method takes in a format string and returns a formatted date and time string.

The following are the many date and time formats that can be used to obtain the proper representation of datetime in Python by supplying the parameters to the strftime () method.

Syntax

datetime.now().strftime(format)

Parameters

The format parameter is the format string that specifies the format of the outputted date and time string.

Return

Returns a formatted date and time string.

Example 1

Let's take a look at an example.

Code

Output

Output Explanation:

In this example, we imported the datetime class from the datetime module. We then used the datetime.now().strftime() method to get the current date and time as a string. The format string we used was "%d/%m/%Y". This formats the date as day/month/year.

Example 2

Let's take another example.

Code

Output

Output Explanation:

In this example, we again imported the datetime class from the datetime module. We then used the datetime.now().strftime() method to get the current date and time as a string. The format string we used was "%a, %d %B %Y". This formats the date as the day of the week, day of the month, month, and year.