Freemarker print date in template - templates

Question

I am trying to print the current date when the template is activated. I have read that I have to pass a new Date() Java object to the template, but I don't know how to do that or where to put it in the code.
Does someone know how to pass a Java object to the template in this case?
Thank you !!

Answer 1

Actually you don't have to pass a new Date() to your template, because placing a timestamp into a template's output is quite common and therefore FreeMarker provides a special variable called .now which returns the current date and time. You can use it in your template like this:
Page generated: ${.now}
(FreeMarker also contains different built-ins for formatting dates: http://freemarker.org/docs/ref_builtins_date.html)
Update: Works only with the latest version of FreeMarker, 2.3.17.

Answer 2

${.now} is the perfect answer. Just wanted to add few other ways to get direct values from date
#-- Predefined format names: -->
${openingTime?string.short}
${openingTime?string.medium}
${openingTime?string.long}
${openingTime?string.full}
${openingTime?string.xs} <#-- XSD xs:time -->
${openingTime?string.iso} <#-- ISO 8601 time -->
${.now?string.short}
${.now?string.medium}
${.now?string.long}
${.now?string.full}
${.now?string.xs} <#-- XSD xs:date -->
${.now?string.iso} <#-- ISO 8601 date -->
${.now?string.short}
${.now?string.medium}
${.now?string.long}
${.now?string.full}
${.now?string.medium_short} <#-- medium date, short time -->
${.now?string.xs} <#-- XSD xs:dateTime -->
${.now?string.iso} <#-- ISO 8601 combined date and time -->
<#-- Programmer-defined named format (# + name): -->
${.now?string.#fileDate}
<#-- Advanced ISO 8601 and XSD formatting: -->
${.now?string.iso_m_u}
${.now?string.xs_ms_nz}
<#-- SimpleDateFormat patterns: -->
${.now?string["dd.MM.yyyy, HH:mm"]}
${.now?string["EEEE, MMMM dd, yyyy, hh:mm a '('zzz')'"]}
${.now?string["EEE, MMM d, ''yy"]}
${.now?string.yyyy} <#-- Same as ${.now?string["yyyy"]} -->
will output
01:45 PM
01:45:09 PM
01:45:09 PM PST
01:45:09 PM PST
13:45:09-08:00
13:45:09-08:00
2/20/07
Apr 20, 2007
April 20, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
2007-02-20-08:00
2007-02-20
2/20/07 01:45 PM
Feb 20, 2007 01:45:09 PM
February 20, 2007 01:45:09 PM PST
Friday, February 20, 2007 01:45:09 PM PST
Feb 8, 2003 9:24 PM
2007-02-20T13:45:09-08:00
2007-02-20T13:45:09-08:00
Apr/20/2007 13:45
2007-02-20T21:45Z
2007-02-20T13:45:09.000
08.04.2003 21:24
Tuesday, April 08, 2003, 09:24 PM (PDT)
Tue, Apr 8, '03
2003
Source

Answer 3

Use the ObjectConstructor API of Freemarker to create a calendar object and a formatter object, then combine the two to print the date:
<#-- Create constructor object -->
<#assign objectConstructor = "freemarker.template.utility.ObjectConstructor"?new()>
<#-- Call calendar constructor -->
<#assign clock = objectConstructor("java.util.GregorianCalendar")>
<#-- Call formatter constructor -->
<#assign mmddyy = objectConstructor("java.text.SimpleDateFormat","MM/dd/yyyy")>
<#-- Call getTime method to return the date in milliseconds-->
<#assign date = clock.getTime()>
<#-- Call format method to pretty print the date -->
<#assign now = mmddyy.format(date)>
<#-- Display date -->
${now}
The ?new built-in, as it was implemented, was a security hole. Now, it only allows you to instantiate a java object that implements the freemarker.template.TemplateModel interface. If you want the functionality of the ?new built-in as it existed in prior versions, make available an instance of the freemarker.template.utility.ObjectConstructor class to your template. For example:
myDataModel.put("objConstructor", new ObjectConstructor());
and then in the template you can do this:
<#assign aList = objConstructor("java.util.ArrayList", 100)>)
References
Freemarker 2.3: Version History
Tag Developers Guide: Freemarker
CRUD Operations using Servlet and FreeMarker Template Engine