How to get current time and date in C++?

Question

Is there a cross-platform way to get the current date and time in C++?

Answer 1

New answer for an old question:

The question does not specify in what timezone. There are two reasonable possibilities:

1. In UTC.
2. In the computer's local timezone.

For 1, you can use this date library and the following program:

#include "date.h"
#include 

int
main()
{
    using namespace date;
    using namespace std::chrono;
    std::cout << system_clock::now() << '\n';
}

Which just output for me:

2015-08-18 22:08:18.944211

The date library essentially just adds a streaming operator for std::chrono::system_clock::time_point. It also adds a lot of other nice functionality, but that is not used in this simple program.

If you prefer 2 (the local time), there is a timezone library that builds on top of the date library. Both of these libraries are open source and cross platform, assuming the compiler supports C++11 or C++14.

#include "tz.h"
#include 

int
main()
{
    using namespace date;
    using namespace std::chrono;
    auto local = make_zoned(current_zone(), system_clock::now());
    std::cout << local << '\n';
}

Which for me just output:

2015-08-18 18:08:18.944211 EDT

The result type from make_zoned is a date::zoned_time which is a pairing of a date::time_zone and a std::chrono::system_clock::time_point. This pair represents a local time, but can also represent UTC, depending on how you query it.

With the above output, you can see that my computer is currently in a timezone with a UTC offset of -4h, and an abbreviation of EDT.

If some other timezone is desired, that can also be accomplished. For example to find the current time in Sydney , Australia just change the construction of the variable local to:

auto local = make_zoned("Australia/Sydney", system_clock::now());

And the output changes to:

2015-08-19 08:08:18.944211 AEST

Update for C++20

This library is now largely adopted for C++20. The namespace date is gone and everything is in namespace std::chrono now. And use zoned_time in place of make_time. Drop the headers "date.h" and "tz.h" and just use .

As I write this, partial implementations are just beginning to emerge on some platforms.