SQL CURRENT_TIME Function

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the SQL CURRENT_TIME function to get the current time.

To get the current time of the database server, you use the CURRENT_TIME function. The following illustrates the syntax:

CURRENT_TIMECode language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following statement returns the current time:

SELECT CURRENT_TIME;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Here is the output:

10:23:29
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The CURRENT_TIME is a standard-SQL function supported by the almost all database systems such as DB2, Firebird, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite.

SQL Server does not support the CURRENT_TIME function, however, you can use the GET_DATE() function to return the current time as shown in the following query:

SELECT CONVERT(TIME, GETDATE()) 
      AS 'CURRENT_TIME using GETDATE()'
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following shows the output:

CURRENT_TIME using GETDATE()
----------------------------
17:46:28.2500000
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Oracle does not have a specific function to return the current time. However, you can use the SYSDATE function that returns both date and time, and uses the TO_CHAR() function to format the time:

SELECT 
    TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'HH24:MI:SS') 
FROM 
    dual;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The output is:

17:46:28Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the SQL CURRENT_TIME function to get the current time of the database server.

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