now()
Applies to: ✅ Microsoft Fabric ✅ Azure Data Explorer ✅ Azure Monitor ✅ Microsoft Sentinel
Returns the current UTC time, optionally offset by a given timespan.
The current UTC time will stay the same across all uses of now()
in a single query statement, even if there's technically a small time difference between when each now()
runs.
Syntax
now(
[ offset ])
Learn more about syntax conventions.
Parameters
Name | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
offset | timespan |
A timespan to add to the current UTC clock time. The default value is 0. |
Returns
The current UTC clock time, plus the offset time if provided, as a datetime
.
Examples
Show the current time
print now()
Show the time 2 days ago
print now(-2d)
Find time elapsed from a given event
The following example shows the time elapsed since the start of the storm events.
StormEvents
| extend Elapsed=now() - StartTime
| take 10
Get the date relative to a specific time interval
let T = datatable(label: string, timespanValue: timespan) [
"minute", 60s,
"hour", 1h,
"day", 1d,
"year", 365d
];
T
| extend timeAgo = now() - timespanValue
Output
label | timespanValue | timeAgo |
---|---|---|
year | 365.00:00:00 | 2022-06-19T08:22:54.6623324Z |
day | 1.00:00:00 | 2023-06-18T08:22:54.6623324Z |
hour | 01:00:00 | 2023-06-19T07:22:54.6623324Z |
minute | 00:01:00 | 2023-06-19T08:21:54.6623324Z |
Note
This operation can be accomplished with the ago() function.