DateTime.Now / DateTime.Today

// Gets the current date and time (local time).
DateTime variable = DateTime.Now;

// Gets today's date (time is 00:00:00).
DateTime variable = DateTime.Today;

// Gets the current UTC date and time.
DateTime variable = DateTime.UtcNow;

using System;

// Gets the current date and time.
DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
Console.WriteLine(now); // e.g., 2024/01/15 14:30:45

// Gets today's date (no time component).
DateTime today = DateTime.Today;
Console.WriteLine(today); // e.g., 2024/01/15 0:00:00

// Gets each component individually.
Console.WriteLine($"Year: {now.Year}");
Console.WriteLine($"Month: {now.Month}");
Console.WriteLine($"Day: {now.Day}");
Console.WriteLine($"Hour: {now.Hour}");
Console.WriteLine($"Minute: {now.Minute}");
Console.WriteLine($"Second: {now.Second}");

// Gets the day of the week.
Console.WriteLine($"Day of week: {now.DayOfWeek}");

// Displays the day of the week as a short name.
string[] dayNames = { "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat" };
Console.WriteLine($"Day of week (short): {dayNames[(int)now.DayOfWeek]}");

// Gets the current UTC time.
DateTime utc = DateTime.UtcNow;
Console.WriteLine($"UTC: {utc}");

Both DateTime.Now and DateTime.Today are static properties. Since they retrieve the current time each time they are called, store the value in a variable if you need to use it multiple times within the same operation.

For logging and database storage, use DateTime.UtcNow, which is not affected by time zone differences. To format a date and time as a string, see DateTime.ToString() / DateTime.AddDays().