Kotlin Program to Get Current Date/TIme

Example 1: Get Current date and time in default format

import java.time.LocalDateTime

fun main(args: Array<String>) {

    val current = LocalDateTime.now()

    println("Current Date and Time is: $current")
}

When you run the program, the output will be:

Current Date and Time is: 2017-08-02T11:25:44.973

In the above program, the current date and time is stored in variable current using LocalDateTime.now() method.

For default format, it is simply converted from a LocalDateTime object to a string using a toString() method.

We can also plus or minus a certain amount of time in Kotlin using LocalDateTime, for example,

To get the exact date 60 seconds from now or to subtract 60 seconds, you can use,

LocalDateTime.now().plusSeconds(60) // adds 60 seconds from now on
LocalDateTime.now().minusSeconds(60) // subtract 60 seconds from now on

Example 2: Get Current date and time with pattern

import java.time.LocalDateTime
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter

fun main(args: Array<String>) {

    val current = LocalDateTime.now()

    val formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS")
    val formatted = current.format(formatter)

    println("Current Date and Time is: $formatted")
}

When you run the program, the output will be:

Current Date and Time is: 2017-08-02 11:29:57.401

In the above program, we've defined a pattern of format Year-Month-Day Hours:Minutes:Seconds.Milliseconds using a DateTimeFormatter object.

Then, we've used LocalDateTime's format() method to use the given formatter. This gets us the formatted string output.


Example 3: Get Current Date time using predefined constants

import java.time.LocalDateTime
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter

fun main(args: Array<String>) {

    val current = LocalDateTime.now()

    val formatter = DateTimeFormatter.BASIC_ISO_DATE
    val formatted = current.format(formatter)

    println("Current Date is: $formatted")
}

When you run the program, the output will be:

Current Date is: 20170802

In the above program, we've used a predefined format constant BASIC_ISO_DATE to get the current ISO date as the output.


Example 4: Get Current Date time in localized style

import java.time.LocalDateTime
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter
import java.time.format.FormatStyle

fun main(args: Array<String>) {

    val current = LocalDateTime.now()

    val formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofLocalizedDateTime(FormatStyle.MEDIUM)
    val formatted = current.format(formatter)

    println("Current Date is: $formatted")
}

When you run the program, the output will be:

Current Date is: Aug 2, 2017 11:44:19 AM

In the above program, we've used a Localized style Medium to get the current date time in the given format. There are other styles as well: Full, Long and Short.


If you're interested, here's a list of all DateTimeFormatter patterns.

Also, here's the equivalent Java code: Java Program to get current date and time

Did you find this article helpful?

Our premium learning platform, created with over a decade of experience and thousands of feedbacks.

Learn and improve your coding skills like never before.

Try Programiz PRO
  • Interactive Courses
  • Certificates
  • AI Help
  • 2000+ Challenges