Difference between System.DateTime.Now and System.DateTime.Today

Question

Can anyone explain the difference between System.DateTime.Now and System.DateTime.Today in C#.NET? Pros and cons of each if possible.

Answer 1

I thought of Adding these links -

• A brief History of DateTime - By Anthony Moore by BCL team
• Choosing between Datetime and DateTime Offset - by MSDN
• Do not forget SQL server 2008 onwards has a new Datatype as DateTimeOffset
• The .NET Framework includes the DateTime, DateTimeOffset, and TimeZoneInfo types, all of which can be used to build applications that work with dates and times.
• Performing Arithmetic Operations with Dates and Times-MSDN

Coming back to original question , Using Reflector i have explained the difference in code

 public static DateTime Today
    {
      get
      {
        return DateTime.Now.Date;   // It returns the date part of Now

        //Date Property
       // returns same date as this instance, and the time value set to 12:00:00 midnight (00:00:00) 
      }
    }


    private const long TicksPerMillisecond = 10000L;
    private const long TicksPerDay = 864000000000L;
    private const int MillisPerDay = 86400000;

    public DateTime Date
    {
       get
      {
        long internalTicks = this.InternalTicks; // Date this instance is converted to Ticks 
        return new DateTime((ulong) (internalTicks - internalTicks % 864000000000L) | this.InternalKind);  
// Modulo of TicksPerDay is subtracted - which brings the time to Midnight time 
      }
    }


     public static DateTime Now
        {
          get
          {
           /* this is why I guess Jon Skeet is recommending to use  UtcNow as you can see in one of the above comment*/
            DateTime utcNow = DateTime.UtcNow;


            /* After this i guess it is Timezone conversion */
            bool isAmbiguousLocalDst = false;
            long ticks1 = TimeZoneInfo.GetDateTimeNowUtcOffsetFromUtc(utcNow, out isAmbiguousLocalDst).Ticks;
            long ticks2 = utcNow.Ticks + ticks1;
            if (ticks2 > 3155378975999999999L)
              return new DateTime(3155378975999999999L, DateTimeKind.Local);
            if (ticks2 < 0L)
              return new DateTime(0L, DateTimeKind.Local);
            else
              return new DateTime(ticks2, DateTimeKind.Local, isAmbiguousLocalDst);
          }
        }

Answer 2

DateTime dt = new DateTime();// gives 01/01/0001 12:00:00 AM
DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;// gives today date with current time
DateTime dt = DateTime.Today;// gives today date and 12:00:00 AM time