NOW()

Function description

The NOW() function returns the value in the 'YYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' format of the current date and time.

NOW() returns the time when the statement starts execution. This is different from the behavior of SYSDATE(), which returns dynamic real-time time during execution.

Function Syntax

> NOW(fsp)

Parameter definition

Parameters	Description
fsp	Non-essential parameters. If the fsp parameter is given to specify a fractional second accuracy from 0 to 6, the return value includes the fractional second portion of the number.

Example

mysql> select now();
+----------------------------------+
| now() |
+----------------------------------+
| 2024-04-29 08:03:50.479238 |
+----------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.03 sec)

mysql> select now(6);
+----------------------------------+
| now(6) |
+----------------------------------+
| 2024-04-29 08:05:26.528629 |
+----------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.02 sec)

mysql> SELECT NOW(), SLEEP(2), NOW();
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| now() | sleep(2) | now() |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2024-04-29 08:17:23.876546 | 0 | 2024-04-29 08:17:23.876546 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 row in set (2.06 sec)

mysql> SELECT SYSDATE(), SLEEP(2), SYSDATE();
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| sysdate() | sleep(2) | sysdate() |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2024-04-29 16:19:21.439725 | 0 | 2024-04-29 16:19:23.440187 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 row in set (2.01 sec)