# Obtaining Current Date/Time

**URL:** <https://community.freefem.org/t/obtaining-current-date-time/3556>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Created:** [October 22, 2024, 5:00am UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/obtaining-current-date-time/3556 "2024-10-22T05:00:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![AllBall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@AllBall](https://community.freefem.org/u/AllBall)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 5:00am UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/obtaining-current-date-time/3556/1 "2024-10-22T05:00:23Z")

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Hi Freefem community,

I am reaching out to you to ask about possible ways to obtain the current date/time in my script, as I would like to create a folder with the date and time labeled to organize my plots in.

Upon digging online, one person suggested using `dateStr = exec("date")`.  
One caveat that seems to have no comments about it online is that when I run this code, my terminal gives the following input prompt to the user:

`The current date is: Mon 10/21/2024 Enter the new date: (mm-dd-yy)`

If you have any guesses on how I could have gaslit the terminal into thinking that I know the date better than it does, it would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Also, I am using Windows for this.

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**Author:** ![etj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a698b9/32.png) [@etj](https://community.freefem.org/u/etj)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 6:58am UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/obtaining-current-date-time/3556/2 "2024-10-23T06:58:02Z")

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Not the date strictly speaking, but may still help:  
`clock()`  
`time()`  
`ltime()`

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**Author:** ![RdMl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a88e57/32.png) [@RdMl](https://community.freefem.org/u/RdMl)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 8:21am UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/obtaining-current-date-time/3556/3 "2024-10-23T08:21:24Z")

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Bonjour à tous,

Voici une solution que fonctionne sous linux, et, sans doute, sous unix\_like.  
Il s’agit d’écrire la date au format souhaité dans un fichier et de relire  
ce fichier pour construire le nom du répertoire souhaité.

Pourquoi passer par un fichier temporaire ? Parce que

string strDate = exec(“date "+%Y-%m-%d-%Hh%M"”) ;

provoque l’affichage de la date au format indiqué sur le terminal  
mais fait que srtDate reçoit le code retour de l’exécution de la  
commande `date "+%Y-%m-%d-%Hh%M"`, à savoir zéro.

Voir le script joint.

Pour l’adapter sous windows, il faut trouver l’équivalent de la  
commande date et de la commande rm.

Bonne journée à tous,  
RM

[repertoire\_avec\_date\_dans\_nom.edp](https://community.freefem.org/uploads/short-url/fXrZtIKvCZqCPfKQTHRc2Yt7h66.edp) (841 Bytes)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AllBall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@AllBall](https://community.freefem.org/u/AllBall)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 6:44am UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/obtaining-current-date-time/3556/4 "2024-12-09T06:44:21Z")

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Sorry for the ridiculously late reply. I gave up on organizing my files this way for about a month, but after coming back to it, it looks like ltime() is the best one for my purposes. Thank you!

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**Author:** ![AllBall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@AllBall](https://community.freefem.org/u/AllBall)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 6:59am UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/obtaining-current-date-time/3556/5 "2024-12-09T06:59:31Z")

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Bonjour, désolé pour la réponse tardive ! Malheureusement, mon français est limité, j’espère donc que Google Translate est précis. Je n’ai jamais envisagé de stocker des données dans un fichier temporaire, mais c’est tellement utile !  
Maintenant, je trouve de nouvelles façons d’utiliser les fichiers temporaires à mon avantage.

Merci beaucoup pour votre aide et bonne journée également Richard!