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Reading date and time from Linux operating system using C++ program

Learn: How to get current date and time from Linux Operating System using C++ program? This program will read date, time from Operating system and print on the standard output device.
[Last updated : February 26, 2023]

Get the date and time from Linux operating system

This C++ program is reading date and time from Linux Operating System, this program is compiled and executed on G++ compiler and compatible for only Linux Operating System based devices.

To extract current date and time, we are using localtime() function.

In this program, we are also going to use time.h and sys/time.h header files, which has definition os related structure.

C++ program to read the date and time from Linux operating system

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

#include <getopt.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <sys/time.h>

//function to read date and time from Linux OS
void readOsDateTime(int* date, int* month, int* year, int* hour, int* min, int* sec, int* wday)
{
    time_t current = time(NULL);
    struct tm* current_s = localtime(&current);

    if (current_s != NULL) {
        *date = current_s->tm_mday;
        *month = ++current_s->tm_mon;
        *year = current_s->tm_year;

        if (*year > 100)
            *year = *year - 100;

        *hour = current_s->tm_hour;
        *min = current_s->tm_min;
        *sec = current_s->tm_sec;
        *wday = current_s->tm_wday;
    }
}

//main function
int main()
{
    //init all variable to 0
    int date = 0;
    int month = 0;
    int year = 0;
    int hour = 0;
    int min = 0;
    int sec = 0;
    int wday = 0;

    //define weekdays names
    char* Names[] = { "Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday" };

    //function call that will assign date and time in variables
    readOsDateTime(&date, &month, &year, &hour, &min, &sec, &wday);
    //printing the date
    cout << date << "/" << month << "/" << year + 2000 << "  " << hour << ":" << min << ":" << sec << "  " << Names[wday];
    cout << endl;
    return 0;
}

Output

11/7/2017  18:47:54  Tuesday