DateTime.Now Not Updating C#

Question

I have this simple time program that uses DateTime.Now , it part of a bigger program I have but this is just a small error I notice. I made a TimeStamp string to get the time of whenever something was done in the code and sending to the console. However, its not updating? I swear at one point it did work and was updating but then it stopped, am I missing something?

ps I dont need the seconds but I put it there for testing purposes, I have also tried it with DateTime.UtcNow and it still didn't work

Code

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace ConsoleApp1TimeStampNEW
{
    internal class Program
    {
        private static DateTime Now = DateTime.Now;

        static string strDate = Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy");
        static string timeString = DateTime.Now.ToString("hh:mm ss tt");
        static string TIMESTAMP = strDate + " " + timeString + " ";

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            char input;

            do
            {
                Console.WriteLine("\n"+TIMESTAMP);
                Console.WriteLine("\nWould you like to repeat? Y/N");

                input = Convert.ToChar(Console.ReadLine());
            }
            while (input == 'y');

            Console.WriteLine("\nPress any key to exit.");
            Console.ReadKey();


        }

    }
}

Output

08/30/2022 12:57 58 PM

Would you like to repeat? Y/N
y

08/30/2022 12:57 58 PM

Would you like to repeat? Y/N

Answer 1

TIMESTAMP is just a string. Once you set it, there is no relationship to the DateTime type.

You want something more like this:

do
{
    Console.WriteLine($"\n{DateTime.Now:MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt}");
    Console.WriteLine("\nWould you like to repeat? Y/N");

    input = Console.ReadLine()[0];
}
while (input == 'y');

---

If you want a string value formatted a certain way every time you use it, one way is via a property :

public string TIMESTAMP {get { return DateTime.Now.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt"); } }

Of course, this needs to be in a class somewhere, but then you could use it like this, which looks more like the original code:

do
{
    Console.WriteLine($"\n" + myClass.TIMESTAMP);
    Console.WriteLine("\nWould you like to repeat? Y/N");

    input = Console.ReadLine()[0];
}
while (input == 'y');

And of course, a method can do the same thing, but for some reason this just feels like a property fits more what you are trying to do.

Answer 2

Try something like this

public string TIMESTAMP {get {return DateTime.Now.ToString();} };

Every time you use TIMESTAMP it will get the current date and time and return it as a string.