How to Get the Current Time in Python

1. Use the datetime Module to Get the Current Time in Python
2. Use the time Module to Get the Current Time in Python

We could use two modules to get the current time in Python, that are datetime and time.

Use the datetime Module to Get the Current Time in Python

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.now()
datetime.datetime(2018, 7, 17, 22, 48, 16, 222169)

It returns the datetime object that includes the date time information including year, month, day and time.

If you prefer a string format, then you could use a strftime method to convert the datetime object instance to a string format as defined in the argument.

>>> datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
'2018-07-17 22:54:25'

Below is the snippet of directives in the strftime format string.

Only Current Time Without Date

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.now().time()
datetime.time(23, 4, 0, 13713)

Use the time Module to Get the Current Time in Python

time.strftime to Get the Current Time in Python

import time

time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", time.localtime())

"2018-07-17 21:06:40"

time.ctime to Get the Current Time in Python

import time

time.ctime()

"Tue Oct 29 11:21:51 2019"

The result is that ctime is more display-friendly to display in the GUI or print in the console. It could aslo be splitted to get the weekday, month, day, time and year.

>>> import time
>>> A = time.ctime()
>>> A = A.split()
>>> A
['Tue', 'Oct', '29', '12:38:44', '2019']