How to convert a string to a time in Golang
Overview
A string can be converted to a time in Golang using the Parse function within the time package.
Syntax
time.Parse(format, dateString)
Parameters
The Parse function accepts the following parameters:
format: The format in which the time (output) should be. For exampleDD-MM-YYYY.dateString: The string that needs to be converted to time.
Return value
The Parse function will return a Golang time object.
Example
In the following code, we will convert a string to time using the Parse function:
package mainimport ("fmt""time")func main() {dateString := "2021-11-22"date, error := time.Parse("2006-01-02", dateString)if error != nil {fmt.Println(error)return}fmt.Printf("Type of dateString: %T\n", dateString)fmt.Printf("Type of date: %T\n", date)fmt.Println()fmt.Printf("Value of dateString: %v\n", dateString)fmt.Printf("Value of date: %v", date)}
Explanation
-
In
lines 3-6, we have imported the necessary packages. -
Inside the
main()function, we have declared a stringdateStringand initialized it with2021-11-22inline #9. -
In
line #10, we then converted the string to date using thetime.Parse()function by passing two parameters; theformatand thedateString. -
If there occurs some error while conversion, we output it on the console in
line 13. -
If there are no errors, we output the type and value of
dateStringanddaterespectively on the console inline 17-21.
We can use multiple predefined format constants e.g.,
package mainimport ("fmt""time")func main() {// using layout RFC1123parseTime, err := time.Parse(time.RFC1123, "Sun, 12 Dec 2021 12:23:00 UTC")if err != nil {panic(err)}fmt.Printf("The Parsed time is: %v\n", parseTime)fmt.Printf("The Formatted Parsed time is: %v", parseTime.Format("02, Jan 2006"))}
Line 10: parses the second argument using the
RFC1123layout and saves the correspondingtimeobject to variableparseTime.Line 15: formats the parsed date and time value using the layout specified by the Format() method and prints the result to the standard output
