PostgreSQL CURRENT_TIME Function By Examples

The PostgreSQL CURRENT_TIME function returns the current time with time zone.

Syntax

The following illustrates the syntax of the CURRENT_TIME function:

CURRENT_TIME(precision)

Arguments

The CURRENT_TIME function accepts one optional argument:

1) precision

The precision argument specifies the returned fractional seconds precision. If you omit the precision argument, the result will include the full available precision.

Return value

The CURRENT_TIME function returns a TIME WITH TIME ZONE value that represents the current time with time zone.

Examples

The following example shows how to get the current time:

SELECT CURRENT_TIME;

The output is a TIME WITH TIME ZONE value as follows:

       timetz
--------------------
 19:25:24.805985-07
(1 row)Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In this example, we didn’t specify the precision argument, therefore, the full precision available included in the result.

The following example illustrates how to use the CURRENT_TIME function with the precision set to 2:

SELECT CURRENT_TIME(2);Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The result is:

     timetz
----------------
 19:26:43.01-07
(1 row)Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The CURRENT_TIME function can be used as the default value of TIME columns.

Let’s see the following example.

First, create a table named log for the demo:

CREATE TABLE log (
    log_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    message VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    created_at TIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIME,
    created_on DATE DEFAULT CURRENT_DATE
);Code language: PHP (php)

The log table has the created_at column whose default value is the result of the CURRENT_TIME function.

Second, insert a row into the log table:

INSERT INTO log( message )
VALUES('Testing the CURRENT_TIME function');Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

In the statement, we only specified a value for the message column, therefore, other columns got the default values.

Third, check whether the row was inserted into the log table with the created_at column populated correctly by using the following query:

SELECT * FROM log;

The following picture shows the result:

As you see, the created_at column was populated with the time of which the INSERT statement executed.

In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the PostgreSQL CURRENT_TIME function to get the current time.

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