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

In C++ 11 you can use std::chrono::system_clock::now()

Example (copied from en.cppreference.com):

#include <iostream>
#include <chrono>
#include <ctime>    

int main()
{
    auto start = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
    // Some computation here
    auto end = std::chrono::system_clock::now();

    std::chrono::duration<double> elapsed_seconds = end-start;
    std::time_t end_time = std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_t(end);

    std::cout << "finished computation at " << std::ctime(&end_time)
              << "elapsed time: " << elapsed_seconds.count() << "s\n";
}

This should print something like this:

finished computation at Mon Oct  2 00:59:08 2017
elapsed time: 1.88232s

Answer 2

You can try the following cross-platform code to get current date/time:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>

// Get current date/time, format is YYYY-MM-DD.HH:mm:ss
const std::string currentDateTime() {
    time_t     now = time(0);
    struct tm  tstruct;
    char       buf[80];
    tstruct = *localtime(&now);
    // Visit http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/chrono/c/strftime
    // for more information about date/time format
    strftime(buf, sizeof(buf), "%Y-%m-%d.%X", &tstruct);

    return buf;
}

int main() {
    std::cout << "currentDateTime()=" << currentDateTime() << std::endl;
    getchar();  // wait for keyboard input
}

Output:

currentDateTime()=2012-05-06.21:47:59

Please visit here for more information about date/time format

Answer 3

Yes and you can do so with formatting rules specified by the currently-imbued locale:

#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <string>

class timefmt
{
public:
    timefmt(std::string fmt)
        : format(fmt) { }

    friend std::ostream& operator <<(std::ostream &, timefmt const &);

private:
    std::string format;
};

std::ostream& operator <<(std::ostream& os, timefmt const& mt)
{
    std::ostream::sentry s(os);

    if (s)
    {
        std::time_t t = std::time(0);
        std::tm const* tm = std::localtime(&t);
        std::ostreambuf_iterator<char> out(os);

        std::use_facet<std::time_put<char>>(os.getloc())
            .put(out, os, os.fill(),
                 tm, &mt.format[0], &mt.format[0] + mt.format.size());
    }

    os.width(0);

    return os;
}

int main()
{
    std::cout << timefmt("%c");
}

Output: Fri Sep 6 20:33:31 2013

Answer 4

This works with G++ I'm not sure if this helps you. Program output:

The current time is 11:43:41 am
The current date is 6-18-2015 June Wednesday 
Day of month is 17 and the Month of year is 6,
also the day of year is 167 & our Weekday is 3.
The current year is 2015.

Code :

#include <ctime>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>

using namespace std;

const std::string currentTime() {
time_t now = time(0);
struct tm tstruct;
char buf[80];
tstruct = *localtime(&now);
strftime(buf, sizeof(buf), "%H:%M:%S %P", &tstruct);
return buf;
}

const std::string currentDate() {
time_t now = time(0);
struct tm tstruct;
char buf[80];
tstruct = *localtime(&now);
strftime(buf, sizeof(buf), "%B %A ", &tstruct);
return buf;
}

int main() {
    cout << "\033[2J\033[1;1H"; 
std:cout << "The current time is " << currentTime() << std::endl;
    time_t t = time(0);   // get time now
    struct tm * now = localtime( & t );
    cout << "The current date is " << now->tm_mon + 1 << '-' 
         << (now->tm_mday  + 1) << '-'
         <<  (now->tm_year + 1900) 
         << " " << currentDate() << endl; 

 cout << "Day of month is " << (now->tm_mday) 
      << " and the Month of year is " << (now->tm_mon)+1 << "," << endl;
    cout << "also the day of year is " << (now->tm_yday) 
         << " & our Weekday is " << (now->tm_wday) << "." << endl;
    cout << "The current year is " << (now->tm_year)+1900 << "." 
         << endl;
 return 0;  
}

Answer 5

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>

int main ()
{
  time_t rawtime;
  struct tm * timeinfo;

  time ( &rawtime );
  timeinfo = localtime ( &rawtime );
  printf ( "Current local time and date: %s", asctime (timeinfo) );

  return 0;
} 

Answer 6

I found this link pretty useful for my implementation: C++ Date and Time

Here's the code I use in my implementation, to get a clear "YYYYMMDD HHMMSS" output format. The param in is for switching between UTC and local time. You can easily modify my code to suite your need.

#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>

using namespace std;

/**
 * This function gets the current date time
 * @param useLocalTime true if want to use local time, default to false (UTC)
 * @return current datetime in the format of "YYYYMMDD HHMMSS"
 */

string getCurrentDateTime(bool useLocalTime) {
    stringstream currentDateTime;
    // current date/time based on current system
    time_t ttNow = time(0);
    tm * ptmNow;

    if (useLocalTime)
        ptmNow = localtime(&ttNow);
    else
        ptmNow = gmtime(&ttNow);

    currentDateTime << 1900 + ptmNow->tm_year;

    //month
    if (ptmNow->tm_mon < 9)
        //Fill in the leading 0 if less than 10
        currentDateTime << "0" << 1 + ptmNow->tm_mon;
    else
        currentDateTime << (1 + ptmNow->tm_mon);

    //day
    if (ptmNow->tm_mday < 10)
        currentDateTime << "0" << ptmNow->tm_mday << " ";
    else
        currentDateTime <<  ptmNow->tm_mday << " ";

    //hour
    if (ptmNow->tm_hour < 10)
        currentDateTime << "0" << ptmNow->tm_hour;
    else
        currentDateTime << ptmNow->tm_hour;

    //min
    if (ptmNow->tm_min < 10)
        currentDateTime << "0" << ptmNow->tm_min;
    else
        currentDateTime << ptmNow->tm_min;

    //sec
    if (ptmNow->tm_sec < 10)
        currentDateTime << "0" << ptmNow->tm_sec;
    else
        currentDateTime << ptmNow->tm_sec;


    return currentDateTime.str();
}

Output (UTC, EST):

20161123 000454
20161122 190454