Go Date and Time Formatting

Posted on by Brad
golang-datetime

In this tutorial, I will let you know some basic formats of date time using golang time package.The Go provides the time package which have some handy method for commonly used date formats:

The current time can be determined using time.Now(), provided by the time package.

/* main.go */

package main

import ("time"
"fmt");

func main() {
        t := time.Now()
        fmt.Printf("today date is = %s", t)
}

The above code will return current system datetime.

Output :

today date is = 2020-02-25 12:32:26.271167524 +0000 UTC m=+0.000332306

UTC Time in Golang

You can also get date format in UTC by appending .UTC()

/* main.go */

package main

import ("time"
"fmt");

func main() {
        t := time.Now().UTC()
        fmt.Printf("today date is = %s", t)
}

Output :

today date is = 2020-02-25 12:35:30.711465968 +0000 UTC

How To Get Unix Timestamp in Golang

The go time package also provide method that convert current datetime into unix timestamp –

/* main.go */
package main

import ("time"
"fmt");

func main() {
        t := time.Now().Unix()
        fmt.Printf("today date in UNIX = %d", t)
}

Output is –

today date in UNIX = 1582634239

How To Print Datetime in Custom Format


You can also format the datetime as per your need, You just need to pass your date format into the time.Format() method –

package main

import ("time"
"fmt");

func main() {
        t := time.Now()
        fmt.Printf("today date = %s", t)
        fmt.Printf("\ntoday date in format = %s", t.Format("Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 -0700 MST 2006"))
}

Output –

today date = 2020-02-26 12:11:38.276938191 +0000 UTC m=+0.000237004
today date in format = Wed Feb 26 12:11:38 +0000 UTC 2020

How To get Yesterday Date in Golang

We can generate yesterday date or past date using golang AddDate() method –

package main

import ("time"
"fmt");

func main() {
        t := time.Now()
        fmt.Println("today date = %s", t)
        fmt.Println("yesterday date = %s", t.AddDate(0, 0, -1))
        fmt.Println("last month date = %s", t.AddDate(0, -1, 0))
        fmt.Println("last year date = %s", t.AddDate(-1, 0, 0))
}

Output –

today date = %s 2020-02-26 12:13:14.900923371 +0000 UTC m=+0.000212148
yesterday date = %s 2020-02-25 12:13:14.900923371 +0000 UTC
last month date = %s 2020-01-26 12:13:14.900923371 +0000 UTC
last year date = %s 2019-02-26 12:13:14.900923371 +0000 UTC

How To get Tomorrow Date in Golang

We can generate tomorrow date or future date using golang AddDate() method –

package main

import ("time"
"fmt");

func main() {
        t := time.Now()
        fmt.Println("today date = %s", t)
        fmt.Println("tomorrow date = %s", t.AddDate(0, 0, 1))
        fmt.Println("next month date = %s", t.AddDate(0, 1, 0))
        fmt.Println("next year date = %s", t.AddDate(1, 0, 0))
}

Output –

today date = %s 2020-02-26 12:16:53.961601321 +0000 UTC m=+0.000221758
tomorrow date = %s 2020-02-27 12:16:53.961601321 +0000 UTC
next month date = %s 2020-03-26 12:16:53.961601321 +0000 UTC
next year date = %s 2021-02-26 12:16:53.961601321 +0000 UTC

The following predefined date and timestamp format constants are also available –

  • ANSIC = “Mon Jan _2 15:04:05 2006”
  • UnixDate = “Mon Jan _2 15:04:05 MST 2006”
  • RubyDate = “Mon Jan 02 15:04:05 -0700 2006”
  • RFC822 = “02 Jan 06 15:04 MST”
  • RFC822Z = “02 Jan 06 15:04 -0700”
  • RFC850 = “Monday, 02-Jan-06 15:04:05 MST”
  • RFC1123 = “Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 MST”
  • RFC1123Z = “Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 -0700”
  • RFC3339 = “2006-01-02T15:04:05Z07:00”
  • RFC3339Nano = “2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00”
  • Kitchen = “3:04PM”
  • Stamp = “Jan _2 15:04:05”
  • StampMilli = “Jan _2 15:04:05.000”
  • StampMicro = “Jan _2 15:04:05.000000”
  • StampNano = “Jan _2 15:04:05.000000000”
golang-datetime