JavaScript: Get the Current Date and Time

1. Introduction

Obtaining the current date and time is essential for many web applications, be it to timestamp a user's action, for logging purposes, or to display it on a webpage. JavaScript provides a built-in Date object for this. In this guide, we will explore how to fetch the current date and time using JavaScript.

2. Program Overview

The steps we'll follow are:

1. Create a new Date object to fetch the current date and time.

2. Extract day, month, year, hours, minutes, and seconds from the Date object.

3. Format and display the extracted information.

3. Code Program

// Create a new Date object
let currentDate = new Date();

// Extracting date information
let day = currentDate.getDate();          // Get the day of the month
let month = currentDate.getMonth() + 1;   // Get the month (0-11, so we add 1)
let year = currentDate.getFullYear();     // Get the full year

// Extracting time information
let hours = currentDate.getHours();       // Get hours (0-23)
let minutes = currentDate.getMinutes();   // Get minutes (0-59)
let seconds = currentDate.getSeconds();   // Get seconds (0-59)

// Formatting the date and time
let formattedDate = ${day}-${month}-${year};
let formattedTime = ${hours}:${minutes}:${seconds};

console.log(Current Date: ${formattedDate});
console.log(Current Time: ${formattedTime});

Output:

Current Date: 7-9-2023  (This will vary based on the actual date)
Current Time: 15:30:45  (This will vary based on the actual time)

4. Step By Step Explanation

1. Creating the Date Object: The Date object in JavaScript is used to handle dates and times. By creating a new instance of this object (new Date()), we get the current date and time.

2. Extracting Date Information:

- getDate(): Fetches the day of the month.

- getMonth(): Returns the month, but note that it's 0-based (January is 0, December is 11). Hence, we add 1 to get the conventional month number.

- getFullYear(): Provides the full year.

3. Extracting Time Information:

- getHours(): Returns the current hour (0-23).

- getMinutes(): Returns the current minute (0-59).

- getSeconds(): Returns the current seconds (0-59).

4. Formatting and Display: We use template literals to format the extracted date and time information. Finally, we print out the current date and time.

Note: The displayed date and time in the output will depend on when you run the program and your system's locale settings.