Python : How to get Current date and time or timestamp ?

Timestamp is a order of characters or encrypted information point out when a certain event occurred, generally it gives date and time of day, sometimes exact to a small fraction of a second.

Get current timestamp using Python

So here we will show you various methods to find out latest date ,time or timestamp in Python.We will import functions from modules time, calendar and date.

1. Using module time :

The function time, return the time in seconds since the date & time as a floating point number.

#using time module
import time
  
# ts stores the time in seconds
ts = time.time()
  
# print the current timestamp
print(ts)

Output:

RESTART: C:/Users/HP/Desktop/article2.py
1618989907.6277814

2. Using module datetime :

The datetime module arranges classes for manipulating dates and times. The function datetime.datetime.now which return number of seconds.

# using datetime module
import datetime;
  
# ct stores current time
ct = datetime.datetime.now()
print("current time:-", ct)
  
# ts store timestamp of current time
ts = ct.timestamp()
print("timestamp:-", ts)

Output:

RESTART: C:/Users/HP/Desktop/article2.py
current time:- 2021-04-21 13:21:06.256878
timestamp:- 1618991466.25687

3. Using module calendar :

We are able to understand timestamp by combining multiple functions by multiple modules.

In this topic we are going to use function calendar.timegm to change tuple showing current time.

# using calendar module
# using time module
import calendar;
import time;
  
# gmt stores current gmtime
gmt = time.gmtime()
print("gmt:-", gmt)
  
# ts stores timestamp
ts = calendar.timegm(gmt)
print("timestamp:-", ts)

Output:

RESTART: C:/Users/HP/Desktop/article2.py
gmt:- time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=21, tm_hour=8, tm_min=18, tm_sec=37, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=111, tm_isdst=0)
timestamp:- 1618993117

For Current Date only:

Let assume we do not want complete current timestamp, we  just want  current date only. Then what to do ?

datetime class consists of  2 other classes date & time . We can get date object from a datetime object.

from datetime import datetime 
dateTimeObj = datetime.now() 
dateObj = dateTimeObj.date()
print(dateObj)

Output:

RESTART: C:/Users/HP/Desktop/article2.py
2021-04-21

from datetime import datetime
import time

dateTimeObj = datetime.now()
# get the time object from datetime object
timeObj = dateTimeObj.time()

print(timeObj)

Output:

RESTART: C:/Users/HP/Desktop/article2.py
18:14:51.276231

For Current Timestamp using time.time():

Python gives us a module time & it also  has a function time() that returns the number of seconds.

from datetime import datetime
import time
dateTimeObj = datetime.now()
# get the time object from datetime object
timeObj = dateTimeObj.time()
secondsSinceEpoch = time.time()
timeObj = time.localtime(secondsSinceEpoch)
# get the current timestamp elements from struct_time object i.e.
print('Current TimeStamp is : %d-%d-%d %d:%d:%d' % (
timeObj.tm_mday, timeObj.tm_mon, timeObj.tm_year, timeObj.tm_hour, timeObj.tm_min, timeObj.tm_sec))

Output:

RESTART: C:/Users/HP/Desktop/article2.py
Current TimeStamp is : 21-4-2021 18:37:31

Get Current Timestamp using time.ctime():

Time module has some other function time.ctime() .

from datetime import datetime
import time
def ctime(seconds=None):
 timeStr = time.ctime()
 print('Current Timestamp : ', timeStr)
print(ctime())

Output:

RESTART: C:/Users/HP/Desktop/article2.py
Current Timestamp : Wed Apr 21 18:46:44 2021

Conclusion:

So In this article we have seen multiple ways to find out current Date & Time or Timestamp.We have also seen how to use ct.time() and time.time().