Simplest way to get current time in current timezone using boost::date_time?

This does what I want:

  namespace pt = boost::posix_time;
  std::ostringstream msg;
  const pt::ptime now = pt::second_clock::local_time();
  pt::time_facet*const f = new pt::time_facet("%H-%M-%S");
  msg.imbue(std::locale(msg.getloc(),f));
  msg << now;

While this is not using boost::date_time it's relatively easy with boost::locale, which is quite more adapted for this task. As your need is simply getting a formatted time from the current locale.

IMHO boost::date_time should be used when you deal with softwares like gantt/planning computations, were you have alot of date_time arithmetic. But simply for using time and doing some arithmetic on it, you will faster success with boost::locale.

#include <iostream>
#include <boost/locale.hpp>

using namespace boost;

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
   locale::generator gen;
   std::locale::global(gen(""));

   locale::date_time now;
   std::cout.imbue(std::locale());       
   std::cout << locale::as::ftime("%H-%M-%S") << now << std::endl;

   return 0;
}

Right now it should output : 15-45-48. :)