Time and date

The Go time package provides functionality for handling time and date.

Major types in the package:

• structure time.Time represents time and date values
• time.Duration represents difference between two time.Time values in nanoseconds
• time.Second, time.Millisecond etc. are constants of time.Duration that are easier to use than nanoseconds

Get current time and date

now := time.Now()

Construct a time and date at a given moment in time

t := time.Date(year int, month Month, day, hour, min, sec, nsec int, loc *Location) Time

loc must be provided and represents time zone. Use time.UTC variable for UTC time zone.

Compare two times for equality

areEqual := t1.Equal(t2)

Add duration to time

newTime := now.Add(5 * time.Second + time.Millisecond * 100)

Time values are immutable. Add returns a new value.

Subtract duration from time

newTime := now.Add(-6 * time.Second)

To subtract 6 seconds we add -6 seconds.

Add years, months, days to time

Adding a duration is for durations smaller than 24 hours.

To advance time by calendar years, months or days, use:

years := 2
months := 3
days := 13
t2 := t.AddDate(years, months, days)

Convert time to Unix representation of time

For interoperability with existing code you often need to use Unix time, which is defined as number of seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC.

unixTime := t.Unix()

Get year, month and day from time

year, month, day := t.Date()