# Extracting current date and time
**URL:** https://discourse.processing.org/t/extracting-current-date-and-time/27754
**Category:** Coding Questions
**Created:** [February 12, 2021, 7:00am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/extracting-current-date-and-time/27754 "2021-02-12T07:00:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@proc8888](https://discourse.processing.org/u/proc8888)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2021, 7:00am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/extracting-current-date-and-time/27754/1 "2021-02-12T07:00:39Z")
How do I extract current date and current time?
The ‘Time & Date’ functions in Processing org reference (online) has individual fields for year, month, day, hour etc.
Instead, I would like to extract the whole current date(YYYYMMDD) into one variable and the current time (HMS) into another field.
Thanks for any tips.
---
### Author:  [@Chrisir](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Chrisir)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2021, 7:38am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/extracting-current-date-and-time/27754/2 "2021-02-12T07:38:53Z")
You just concat the Strings using + and nf()
hour minute second
and
year month day
---
### Author:  [@stan47](https://discourse.processing.org/u/stan47)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2021, 9:32am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/extracting-current-date-and-time/27754/3 "2021-02-12T09:32:14Z")
This may help I hope
import java.util.\*;
void setup(){
Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
println( String.format("%1$ty%1$tm%1$td\_%1$tH%1$tM%1$tS", now));
println( String.format("%1$ty%1$tm%1$td", now));
println( String.format("%1$tH%1$tM%1$tS", now));
}
void draw(){}
// if you need a function…
//String timestamp() {
//Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
//return String.format("%1$ty%1$tm%1$td\_%1$tH%1$tM%1$tS", now);
//}
---
### Author:  [@Chrisir](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Chrisir)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2021, 12:42pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/extracting-current-date-and-time/27754/4 "2021-02-13T12:42:34Z")
here
```auto
String dateMy, timeMy="";
dateMy = nf(year(), 4)+"/"
+nf(month(), 2)+"/"
+nf(day(), 2);
timeMy= nf(hour(), 2)+":"
+nf(minute(), 2)+":"
+nf(second(), 2);
println (dateMy, timeMy);
```