Outputting Date and Time in C++ using std::chrono

The <chrono> library only deals with time and not dates, except for the system_clock which has the ability to convert its timepoints to time_t. So using <chrono> for dates will not improve things much. Hopefully we get something like chrono::date in the not too distant future.

That said, you can use <chrono> in the following way:

#include <chrono>  // chrono::system_clock
#include <ctime>   // localtime
#include <sstream> // stringstream
#include <iomanip> // put_time
#include <string>  // string

std::string return_current_time_and_date()
{
    auto now = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
    auto in_time_t = std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_t(now);

    std::stringstream ss;
    ss << std::put_time(std::localtime(&in_time_t), "%Y-%m-%d %X");
    return ss.str();
}

Note that std::localtime may cause data races. localtime_r or similar functions may be available on your platforms.

Update:

Using a new version of Howard Hinnant's date library you can write:

#include "date.h"
#include <chrono>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>

std::string return_current_time_and_date() {
  auto now = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
  auto today = date::floor<days>(now);

  std::stringstream ss;
  ss << today << ' ' << date::make_time(now - today) << " UTC";
  return ss.str();
}

This will print out something like "2015-07-24 05:15:34.043473124 UTC".

---

On an unrelated note, returning const objects has become undesirable with C++11; const return values cannot be moved from. I also removed the trailing const because trailing const is only valid for member functions and this function has no need to be a member.

An example:

#include <iostream>
#include <chrono>
#include <ctime>

std::string getTimeStr(){
    std::time_t now = std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_t(std::chrono::system_clock::now());

    std::string s(30, '\0');
    std::strftime(&s[0], s.size(), "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", std::localtime(&now));
    return s;
}
int main(){

    std::cout<<getTimeStr()<<std::endl;
    return 0;

}

Output as below:

For getting also milliseconds, I use chrono and C function localtime_r which is thread-safe (in opposition to std::localtime).

#include <iostream>
#include <chrono>
#include <ctime>
#include <time.h>
#include <iomanip>


int main() {
  std::chrono::system_clock::time_point now = std::chrono::system_clock::now();
  std::time_t currentTime = std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_t(now);
  std::chrono::milliseconds now2 = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::milliseconds>(now.time_since_epoch());
  struct tm currentLocalTime;
  localtime_r(&currentTime, &currentLocalTime);
  char timeBuffer[80];
  std::size_t charCount { std::strftime( timeBuffer, 80,
                                         "%D %T",
                                          &currentLocalTime)
                         };

  if (charCount == 0) return -1;

  std::cout << timeBuffer << "." << std::setfill('0') << std::setw(3) << now2.count() % 1000 << std::endl;
  return 0;
}

For format: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/ctime/strftime/