How to get current time in jinja - jinja2

Question

What is the method to get current date time value in jinja tags ?
On my project I need to show current time in UTC at top right corner of site.

Answer 1

I like #Assem's answer. I'm going to demo it in a Jinja2 template.
#!/bin/env python3
import datetime
from jinja2 import Template
template = Template("""
# Generation started on {{ now() }}
... this is the rest of my template...
# Completed generation.
""")
template.globals['now'] = datetime.datetime.utcnow
print(template.render())
Output:
# Generation started on 2017-11-14 15:48:06.507123
... this is the rest of my template...
# Completed generation.
Note:
I rejected an edit from someone who stated "datetime.datetime.utcnow() is a method, not a property". While they are "correct", they misunderstood the intention of NOT including the (). Including () causes the method to be called at the time the object template.globals['now'] is defined. That would cause every use of now in your template to render the same value rather than getting a current result from datetime.datetime.utcnow.

Answer 2

You should use datetime library of Python, get the time and pass it as a variable to the template:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.utcnow()
'2015-05-15 05:22:17.953439'

Answer 3

For anyone who wants to add the now tag back into Jinja2 permanently, there is a great example for how to add it as a Jinja extension here:
https://www.webforefront.com/django/useandcreatejinjaextensions.html
This requires defining a new Jinja extension within a python script inside your Django web app, and then importing it as an extension in settings.py.
In your_web_app/some_file.py (I put it in the same directory as settings.py):
from jinja2 import lexer, nodes
from jinja2.ext import Extension
from django.utils import timezone
from django.template.defaultfilters import date
from django.conf import settings
from datetime import datetime
class DjangoNow(Extension):
tags = set(['now'])
def _now(self, date_format):
tzinfo = timezone.get_current_timezone() if settings.USE_TZ else None
formatted = date(datetime.now(tz=tzinfo),date_format)
return formatted
def parse(self, parser):
lineno = next(parser.stream).lineno
token = parser.stream.expect(lexer.TOKEN_STRING)
date_format = nodes.Const(token.value)
call = self.call_method('_now', [date_format], lineno=lineno)
token = parser.stream.current
if token.test('name:as'):
next(parser.stream)
as_var = parser.stream.expect(lexer.TOKEN_NAME)
as_var = nodes.Name(as_var.value, 'store', lineno=as_var.lineno)
return nodes.Assign(as_var, call, lineno=lineno)
else:
return nodes.Output([call], lineno=lineno)
Then, in settings.py, add the DjangoNow class to the extensions list under OPTIONS within TEMPLATES:
TEMPLATES = [
...
{
'BACKEND':'django.template.backends.jinja2.Jinja2',
...
'OPTIONS': {
...,
'extensions': [
'your-app-name.some-file.DjangoNow',
],
}
}
]
Then you can use the now tag just as you would use it with Django, for example:
{% now 'U' %}

Answer 4

I faced the same problem, but finally found jinja2-time:
from jinja2 import Environment
env = Environment(extensions=['jinja2_time.TimeExtension'])
# Timezone 'local', default format -> "2015-12-10"
template = env.from_string("{% now 'local' %}")
# Timezone 'utc', explicit format -> "Thu, 10 Dec 2015 15:49:01"
template = env.from_string("{% now 'utc', '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S' %}")
# Timezone 'Europe/Berlin', explicit format -> "CET +0100"
template = env.from_string("{% now 'Europe/Berlin', '%Z %z' %}")
# Timezone 'utc', explicit format -> "2015"
template = env.from_string("{% now 'utc', '%Y' %}")
template.render()
More about jinja2-time extension installation:
jinja2-time is available for download from PyPI via pip:
$ pip install jinja2-time
It will automatically install jinja2 along with arrow.

Answer 5

To add the current date stamp to an HTML document generated from a HTML template using Jinja2:
#In the HTML template do:
{{ date.strftime('%B %d, %Y') }} <!-- Output format "Month DD, YYYY" -->
(Minimum) Python code:
## Tested in Python 3.6.8
import os
import datetime
import jinja2
JINJA_ENVIRONMENT = jinja2.Environment(
loader=jinja2.FileSystemLoader(os.path.dirname(__file__)),
extensions=['jinja2.ext.autoescape'],
autoescape=True)
#When building the values to pass to jinja
self.datapool=dict()
self.datapool['date']= datetime.datetime.now()
template = JINJA_ENVIRONMENT.get_template('./templates/base-html-template.html')
report=template.render(self.datapool)