How can I get the current time in Cosmos DB

Question

I'm looking for the equivalent of MySQL now(). Any format is fine.

Hint: `getdate()`, `current_timestamp`. – Gordon Linoff Apr 12 '17 at 20:10 — Gordon Linoff, Apr 12 '17 at 20:10

Larry Maccherone · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-18T18:33:22.723

4

You should create a User Defined Function (UDF) like this.

function now() {
    return new Date();
}

You would call it like this:

SELECT udf.now(), c.date, c.id FROM c WHERE c.date < udf.now()

edited Feb 18 '23 at 18:33

answered Apr 12 '17 at 20:15

Larry Maccherone

2

your answer worked perfectly. Maybe you should explain the UDF in a little bit more details. I am very new to Azure Cosmos and did not get the first sentence at once. "You should create an User Defined Function like this" Was more appropriate for a begniner like me. Just a hint ... – achahbar Jun 24 '19 at 08:01

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 25 '20 at 23:01

As of the end of 2020, there are 2 functions to get current date/time in Cosmos DB:

SELECT 
    GetCurrentDateTime() AS utc_datetime_iso_8601,
    GetCurrentTimestamp() AS timestamp_with_milliseconds

returns

[
    {
        "utc_datetime_iso_8601": "2020-12-25T22:56:27.3453234Z",
        "timestamp_with_milliseconds": 1608936987345
    }
]

2 Answers2