how to display current date time in flutter with code examples

Flutter is a popular open-source mobile application development framework that allows developers to create beautiful, high-performing, and cross-platform applications. Displaying the current date and time is a common requirement in most applications. In this article, we will discuss how to display the current date and time in Flutter with code examples.

DateTime class in Flutter

Flutter provides a built-in DateTime class that represents a date and time. It’s one of the most commonly used classes when dealing with time and date in a Flutter application. The DateTime class offers several useful methods that allow you to manipulate and format date and time values. Before we can display the current date and time, we first need to create an instance of the DateTime class.

DateTime.now()

The DateTime.now() method returns the current date and time as a DateTime object. We can use this method to get the current date and time and then format it in any way we like.

Code Example

Let’s create a simple Flutter application that displays the current date and time in a Text widget.

Create a new Flutter project in Android Studio, and add a new file to the 'lib' directory named 'datetime.dart'.

Add the following code to the 'datetime.dart' file:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:intl/intl.dart';

class DateTimePage extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    var now = DateTime.now();
    var formatter = DateFormat('yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss');
    String formattedDate = formatter.format(now);

    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(title: Text('Display Current Date Time')),
      body: Center(
        child: Text(
          'Current Date Time: $formattedDate',
          style: TextStyle(fontSize: 20),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

The code above imports the 'material.dart' and 'intl.dart' packages. We create a new instance of the DateTime class called 'now', which holds the current date and time.

Next, we create an instance of the DateFormat class, which is used to format the date and time. The 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss' format string formats the date and time in the following way: year-month-day hour:minute:second.

We then format the current date and time using the format() method of the DateFormat class and store the result in the 'formattedDate' variable.

Finally, we create a Scaffold widget with an AppBar and a Center widget that holds a Text widget that displays the current date and time.

To display this widget, we need to navigate to the 'main.dart' file and add the following code:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'datetime.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(MyApp());
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'Flutter Date Time',
      home: DateTimePage(),
    );
  }
}

The code above imports the 'material.dart' package and the 'datetime.dart' file we just created. We then create a new MyApp widget and return a MaterialApp widget with the title 'Flutter Date Time' and the home page set to the DateTimePage widget we created earlier.

Save the files and run the application in your emulator or device. You should now see the current date and time displayed in the app.

Congratulations! You just displayed the current date and time in your Flutter application!

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to display the current date and time in a Flutter application with code examples. We showed how to create an instance of the DateTime class and format the date and time using the DateFormat class. We then used a Text widget to display the formatted date and time in the application. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can easily display the current date and time in your Flutter application.

I'd be happy to provide more information on previous topics.

Flutter

Flutter is a mobile application development framework that allows developers to build high-performing, beautiful, and cross-platform applications. Flutter uses the Dart programming language, which is easy to learn and comes with built-in features such as static typing, asynchronous programming, and hot-reloading. Flutter also comes with a widget-based architecture that allows for a seamless and reactive user interface.

Widgets in Flutter

Widgets are a fundamental aspect of Flutter's widget-based architecture. The widget tree in Flutter represents the visual elements of the application, such as buttons, text, images, and more. Each widget in the tree is a piece of the visual UI. Widgets in Flutter come in two flavors: stateless and stateful.

Stateless widgets are immutable and do not change over time. They are used to display static content, such as text, images, or icons. Stateless widgets are created using the StatelessWidget class.

Stateful widgets are mutable and can change over time. They maintain state internally and are used to display content that can change, such as animations, forms, or user input. Stateful widgets are created using the StatefulWidget class.

Dart programming language

Dart is a programming language developed by Google. It is used to build applications for the web, mobile, and desktop platforms. Dart is an object-oriented language with features such as static typing, asynchronous programming, and a garbage collector.

Dart is fast and efficient, making it an ideal choice for building high-performance applications. It is also easy to learn and comes with a rich set of libraries and tools.

Dart is the primary programming language used in Flutter. Flutter developers use Dart to write the application code, build UI components, and manage state.

Conclusion

Flutter, widgets, and Dart are essential topics for any Flutter developer. Understanding these concepts is crucial to building a high-performing, cross-platform application. In this brief overview, we covered the basic concepts of each topic, but there is a lot more to learn. As you dive deeper into Flutter development, you'll come across many intricate aspects of each topic that will enhance your understanding of the platform and enable you to build even better applications.

Popular questions

1. What is the DateTime class in Flutter?
   The DateTime class is a built-in class in Flutter that represents a date and time. It provides useful methods to manipulate and format date and time values.

2. How can we get the current date and time using Dart in Flutter?
   We can use the DateTime.now() method to get the current date and time as a DateTime object.

3. What is the DateFormat class in Flutter?
   The DateFormat class in Flutter provides methods to format and parse date and time values. It's used to format the DateTime object into a specified string format.

4. How do we display the current date and time in a Flutter application using a Text widget?
   We can create an instance of the DateTime class and format it using the DateFormat class. The formatted date and time can then be displayed in a Text widget using the Text() constructor.

5. Can we modify the date and time using the DateTime class in Flutter?
   Yes, the DateTime class provides methods to add and subtract time intervals from a given date and time. It can also be used to compare two dates and times and determine which one is greater or smaller.

Tag

"FlutterDateTime"