What Year Is It Today? Unraveling the Current Date and Time

Determining “What Year Is It Today” seems like a simple question, but understanding the date involves more than just knowing the current year. It’s about understanding the calendar system, date formats, and how different programming languages handle date calculations. So, let’s dive into the details of figuring out the current date and time.

Currently, it is Friday, March 28, 2025. This represents the 87th day of the year. Meaning there are 278 days remaining in 2025. This information can be valuable for various applications, from tracking progress on a project to simply staying organized.

Understanding the day number within a year can be useful. The day of the year is a number between 1 and 365 (or 366 in a leap year), where January 1st is day 1. This is especially useful in programming and data analysis.

The ISO-8601 ordinal date format is a standard way to represent dates, ensuring consistency across different systems and locations. This format is particularly helpful in international data exchange and software development. There’s also the ‘ISO day of year’ format, a number between 1 and 371, where day 1 is the Monday of the first ISO week (the first Thursday of the new year is in week 1).

Programming Routines to Determine the Day of the Year

For developers, knowing how to programmatically determine the day of the year is essential. Here are snippets in various programming languages:

Microsoft Excel

=TODAY()-DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,0)

or, for any date entered in cell A1:

=A1-DATE(YEAR(A1),1,0)

Google Docs Spreadsheet

=DATEDIF(CONCAT("1-1-";year(now()));today();"D")+1

Calculates the difference between January 1st and today and adds 1 to get today’s day number.

LibreOffice Calc

=ROUNDDOWN(DAYS(NOW(),DATE(YEAR(NOW()),1,1))) + 1

PHP

$dayNumber = date("z") + 1;

You can also use an epoch timestamp:

date("z", epoch) + 1

Note that date("z") starts counting from 0.

Python

from datetime import datetime
day_of_year = datetime.now().timetuple().tm_yday

PERL

use Time::Piece;
my $day_of_year = localtime->yday + 1;

MySQL

SELECT DAYOFYEAR(NOW())

This SQL query returns the day number between 1 and 366.

Oracle

select to_char(sysdate, 'DDD') from dual
select to_char(to_date('2025-02-20','YYYY-MM-DD'), 'DDD') from dual

JavaScript

var today = new Date();
Math.ceil((today - new Date(today.getFullYear(),0,1)) / 86400000);

Or, adding a method to the Date object:

Date.prototype.getDOY = function() {
  var onejan = new Date(this.getFullYear(),0,1);
  return Math.ceil((this - onejan) / 86400000);
}
var today = new Date();
var daynum = today.getDOY();

Java

LocalDate.now().getDayOfYear();

Unix/Linux

date +%j

C

int iDayOfYear = System.DateTime.UtcNow.DayOfYear;

Ruby

time = Time.new
puts time.yday

Go (Golang)

day := time.Now().YearDay()

Conclusion

“What year is it today?” is a deceptively simple question. Understanding the intricacies of dates, calendar systems, and programming routines provides valuable insights. Whether you’re planning an event, tracking progress, or developing software, knowing how to accurately determine the date and day of the year is essential. The tools and code snippets provided here should give you a solid foundation for handling dates in various contexts.