How to get current date and time in Python?

There are a number of ways we can take to get the current date. We will use the date class of the datetime module to accomplish this task.

Example 1: Python get today's date

from datetime import date

today = date.today()
print("Today's date:", today)

Output

Today's date: 2022-12-27

Here, we imported the date class from the datetime module. Then, we used the date.today() method to get the current local date.

Example 2: Current date in different formats

from datetime import date

today = date.today()

# dd/mm/YY
d1 = today.strftime("%d/%m/%Y")
print("d1 =", d1)

# Textual month, day and year	
d2 = today.strftime("%B %d, %Y")
print("d2 =", d2)

# mm/dd/y
d3 = today.strftime("%m/%d/%y")
print("d3 =", d3)

# Month abbreviation, day and year	
d4 = today.strftime("%b-%d-%Y")
print("d4 =", d4)

Output

d1 = 27/12/2022
d2 = December 27, 2022
d3 = 12/27/22
d4 = Dec-27-2022

Get the current date and time in Python

If we need to get the current date and time, you can use the datetime class of the datetime module.

from datetime import datetime

# datetime object containing current date and time
now = datetime.now()
 
print("now =", now)

# dd/mm/YY H:M:S
dt_string = now.strftime("%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S")
print("date and time =", dt_string)

Output

now = 2022-12-27 10:09:20.430322
date and time = 27/12/2022 10:09:20

Here, we have used datetime.now() to get the current date and time.

Then, we used strftime() to create a string representing date and time in another format.