now() function in Python

Last Updated : 15 Oct, 2020

Python library defines a function that can be primarily used to get current time and date. now() function Return the current local date and time, which is defined under 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.

Code #1 :

   # Python3 code to demonstrate 
# Getting current time using  
# now(). 
  
# importing datetime module for now() 
import datetime 
  
# using now() to get current time 
current_time = datetime.datetime.now() 
  
# Printing value of now. 
print ("Time now at greenwich meridian is : "
                                    , end = "") 
print (current_time) 
 
  

Output :

  Time now at greenwich meridian is : 2018-03-29 10:26:23.473031

Attributes of now() :

now() has different attributes, same as attributes of time such as year, month, date, hour, minute, second.

Code #2 : Demonstrate attributes of now().

   # Python3 code to demonstrate 
# attributes of now() 
  
# 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) 
 
  

  The attributes of now() are :   Year : 2018  Month : 3  Day : 26  Hour : 20  Minute : 9  Second : 4  Microsecond : 499806

Getting time of particular timezone :

Sometimes, the need is just to get the current time of a particular timezone. now() takes timezone as input to give timezone oriented output time. But these time zones are defined in pytz library.

Code #3 : Use of now() to handle specific timezone.

   # Python3 code to demonstrate 
# attributes of now() for timezone 
  
# for now() 
import datetime 
  
# for timezone() 
import pytz 
  
# using now() to get current time 
current_time = datetime.datetime.now(pytz.timezone('Asia / Calcutta')) 
  
# printing current time in india 
print ("The current time in india is : ") 
print (current_time)  
 
  

Output:

  The current time in india is :   2018-03-29 03:09:33.878000+05:30

Note : Above code won’t work on online IDE due to absence of pytz module.

Application :
While developing any real world application, we might need to show real time of any timezone. now() function can do the work here very efficiently and easily.