Clock in JavaScript displaying current date and time with refresh rate of 1 sec

We can display a clock which will be showing the local time of the client computer by using JavaScript. Note that this time displayed is taken from user computer and not from the server.

JavaScript real time clock showing change in date and time in different formats

We have seen in our date object example how to display current date and time where the current date and time is displayed once. Here we will try to display changing clock or real time change in date and time by using setTimeout function. This setTimeout function we have used to trigger the time display function in a refresh rate of 1000 mill seconds ( 1 Sec ). This refresh rate can be changed to any other value. By changing the value to 5000 the clock will refresh and show the exact time once in every 5 seconds.

Here is the demo of this script and code is given below that.

Here is the code


<html>
<head>
<title>(Type a title for your page here)</title>
<script type="text/javascript"> 
function display_c(){
var refresh=1000; // Refresh rate in milli seconds
mytime=setTimeout('display_ct()',refresh)
}

function display_ct() {
var x = new Date()
document.getElementById('ct').innerHTML = x;
display_c();
 }
</script>
</head>

<body onload=display_ct();>
<span id='ct' ></span>

</body>
</html>

Changing the display format

To change the display format we need to change the function part only where we can change the display part.
Let us start with using UTC string

function display_ct() {
var x = new Date()
var x1=x.toUTCString();// changing the display to UTC string
document.getElementById('ct').innerHTML = x1;
tt=display_c();
 }

The output is here

Displaying in mm/dd/yy H:m:s format

Here is the code

function display_ct() {
var x = new Date()
var x1=x.getMonth() + 1+ "/" + x.getDate() + "/" + x.getFullYear(); 
x1 = x1 + " - " +  x.getHours( )+ ":" +  x.getMinutes() + ":" +  x.getSeconds();
document.getElementById('ct').innerHTML = x1;
display_c();
 }

Note that we have only changed the display_ct() function part , other code remains same. Here is the output

Displaying AM or PM with clock

<script>

function display_ct5() {
var x = new Date()
var ampm = x.getHours( ) >= 12 ? ' PM' : ' AM';

var x1=x.getMonth() + 1+ "/" + x.getDate() + "/" + x.getFullYear(); 
x1 = x1 + " - " +  x.getHours( )+ ":" +  x.getMinutes() + ":" +  x.getSeconds() + ":" + ampm;
document.getElementById('ct5').innerHTML = x1;
display_c5();
 }
 function display_c5(){
var refresh=1000; // Refresh rate in milli seconds
mytime=setTimeout('display_ct5()',refresh)
}
display_c5()
</script>
<span id='ct5' style="background-color: #FFFF00"></span>

Displaying 12 hours format

<script>function display_ct6() {
var x = new Date()
var ampm = x.getHours( ) >= 12 ? ' PM' : ' AM';
hours = x.getHours( ) % 12;
hours = hours ? hours : 12;
var x1=x.getMonth() + 1+ "/" + x.getDate() + "/" + x.getFullYear(); 
x1 = x1 + " - " +  hours + ":" +  x.getMinutes() + ":" +  x.getSeconds() + ":" + ampm;
document.getElementById('ct6').innerHTML = x1;
display_c6();
 }
 function display_c6(){
var refresh=1000; // Refresh rate in milli seconds
mytime=setTimeout('display_ct6()',refresh)
}
display_c6()
</script>
<span id='ct6' style="background-color: #FFFF00"></span>

Add one leading zero to all single digit in month , date, hour , minute and seconds.

<script>function display_ct7() {
var x = new Date()
var ampm = x.getHours( ) >= 12 ? ' PM' : ' AM';
hours = x.getHours( ) % 12;
hours = hours ? hours : 12;
hours=hours.toString().length==1? 0+hours.toString() : hours;

var minutes=x.getMinutes().toString()
minutes=minutes.length==1 ? 0+minutes : minutes;

var seconds=x.getSeconds().toString()
seconds=seconds.length==1 ? 0+seconds : seconds;

var month=(x.getMonth() +1).toString();
month=month.length==1 ? 0+month : month;

var dt=x.getDate().toString();
dt=dt.length==1 ? 0+dt : dt;

var x1=month + "/" + dt + "/" + x.getFullYear(); 
x1 = x1 + " - " +  hours + ":" +  minutes + ":" +  seconds + " " + ampm;
document.getElementById('ct7').innerHTML = x1;
display_c7();
 }
 function display_c7(){
var refresh=1000; // Refresh rate in milli seconds
mytime=setTimeout('display_ct7()',refresh)
}
display_c7()
</script>
<span id='ct7' style="background-color: #FFFF00"></span>

To display clock inside a textbox

Create a textbox and give id to it

<input type=text id='t1' size='70'>

For displaying add this line inside the function display_ct()

document.getElementById('t1').value = x;

Changing font size and font color of display

document.getElementById('ct3').style.fontSize='30px';
document.getElementById('ct3').style.color='#0030c0';
document.getElementById('ct3').innerHTML = x2;

Adding 0 to single digit numbers

We can display 5 hours as 05 hours or 2 minutes as 02 minutes.

// date part ///
var month=x.getMonth()+1;
var day=x.getDate();
var year=x.getFullYear();
if (month <10 ){month='0' + month;}
if (day <10 ){day='0' + day;}
var x3= month+'-'+day+'-'+year;

// time part //
var hour=x.getHours();
var minute=x.getMinutes();
var second=x.getSeconds();
if(hour <10 ){hour='0'+hour;}
if(minute <10 ) {minute='0' + minute; }
if(second<10){second='0' + second;}
var x3 = x3 + ' ' +  hour+':'+minute+':'+second

<span id='ct4' style="background-color:#FFFF00"></span>

Displaying Server time using Ajax

This script uses JavaScript to read client computer time and display the same. By using PHP or any other server side script we can display server time. But here we can get once the time that is the time of the page rendered from server. To display updated or real time clock showing server time we have to send request to server periodically. To do this we can use Ajax to get current date and time from server and display in one second interval.

Toggling the display of clock by a button ( using Jquery)

Read how we can toggle the display of the clock by controlling from a button.

Draw Analog Clock on Canvas using Jquery or JavaScript.

Date Reference Clock of cities in different time zones
Set Alarm Clock using time picker script Stopwatch script using setInterval()

Ken	18-02-2013
Hi! I would like to ask if how can I display the time in textbox? Thanks.

Drew	27-02-2013
Hi Sir, How can i display it in this format Date is February 27, 2013 Time is 05:36:02 PM Thanks, Drew

smo	27-02-2013
The only difficulty is to display the Month part. You can read this tutorial on displaying full month in JavaScript. Rest of the things can be managed. Let us know the result.

Jeremie	12-12-2013
Great tutorial. Do you know if it would be possible to display the servers time instead of the clients?

smo	14-12-2013
You need to use and server side script like PHP, ASP etc to display server time. Here is an example of displaying server time using PHP.

Madhu	07-02-2014
wow..it is really helpful. But i want same thing in date picker control. Is it possible ?

ramesh	14-04-2014
i want to change the text font size and font name....How?

smo	14-04-2014
By using style property we can manage font size and font color. Demo added.

Fahad	19-05-2014
How to change time-zone in example UTC string?

www.ibrahimaziz.biz	23-07-2014
Works like charm !, thank you so much, greetings from Indonesia :D.

nagaraj	15-05-2014
it is help full,

qwho	29-08-2014
wow! my year displaying as 114 instead of 2014 had been bugging me a long time, went looking today and found this page, thank you!

Neha	24-09-2014
Wow great work.. ! Happy to find this blog.. Thanks sir..

hack	04-10-2014
Fantastic tutorial.........thank you!!!

susan	17-10-2014
I want to start with server time, which works for the rendering time of page. But then stops. How to increment? I used var x = new Date(<?php echo time(); ?>*1000) Any idea?

smo	18-10-2014
To get updated server time , you need to refresh the page at a interval. Another way is to use Ajax which gets the time from the server without refreshing the page.

susan	18-10-2014
'var x = new Date( < ?php echo time( ); ? > *1000);' Unfortunately the PHP gets stripped out of my code... This code initiates 'new Date()' with server date. I expect your code to increment as it does, when 'new Date()' is initiated with local time. Why that does not work?

kedar	20-10-2014
i saw your stop watch script how i can run the clock without clicking button, and i want to show the same time even after refresh the page. How i can do.

smo	20-10-2014
To get the server time and increment it we have to use Ajax. It connects to server in every one second and gets the data. You can read the tutorial and download the script here.

mekala	22-12-2014
Really,this date and time function useful for my coding...Thank you

amit verma	13-01-2015
hi there i need to show live clock of to different time zones how can i do so

Heslon	13-01-2015
Thanks so much, I have enjoyed learning through this tutorials.

Christina	17-02-2015
You should consider altering the code for any time that has a minute or second that is less than 10. Your way shows the time as being "9:2:3" instead of "9:02:03"

Imran Ashraf	08-10-2015
Your code is working correctly. Thanks

Real time changing Clock showing date and time