What does DateTime now = DateTime.Now; do in C#?

Question

I found out how to get the current date and time as variables (right?) in C# thanks to this thread with the code

DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
string date = now.GetDateTimeFormats('d')[0];
string time = now.GetDateTimeFormats('t')[0];

However I'm not sure what the first line does. After some thinking I suppose it calls the current date and time data from the computer and applies/tells it to the program.

By the way, I'm a noob at programming and new to C#.

Answer 1

The first line

DateTime now = DateTime.Now;

takes the current time, and stores it in a variable. The reason it's done is to make sure that subsequent calls of GetDateTimeFormats are performed on a variable representing the same time. If you call DateTime.Now several times, you may get a different time each time that you make a call.

For example, if you do

string date = DateTime.Now.GetDateTimeFormats('d')[0];
string time = DateTime.Now.GetDateTimeFormats('t')[0];

very close to midnight, the date and time portions may belong to different dates.

Answer 2

Yes, it does exactly what you think it does.

You created a variable called now (type DateTime ) and assigned it to DateTime.Now which is a special static property of DateTime that:

Gets a DateTime object that is set to the current date and time on this computer, expressed as the local time.

( MSDN )

So you have the date and time that line of code was run stored off in the now variable. Simple as that.