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NOW

The NOW() function in SQL returns the current date and time in UTC. You can use it to retrieve the current UTC timestamp, or as a default value for a TIMESTAMP column in a table.

Syntax​

NOW()

Examples​

Creating a table with a TIMESTAMP column and setting the default value to NOW()​

CREATE TABLE Item (time TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW());

This creates a table named Item with a column time of the type TIMESTAMP. The default value for this column is the current UTC timestamp.

Inserting data into the table​

INSERT INTO Item (time) VALUES
    ('2021-10-13T06:42:40.364832862'),
    ('9999-12-31T23:59:40.364832862');

Here we're inserting two rows into the Item table with specific timestamps.

Selecting rows where the timestamp is greater than the current timestamp​

SELECT time FROM Item WHERE time > NOW();

This query selects the time column from the Item table where the time is greater than the current UTC timestamp. In this case, the result will be:

9999-12-31T23:59:40.364832862