Digital Clock in C++

A digital clock, as opposed to an analog clock, shows the time digitally (in numbers or other symbols). In this tutorial, we will develop a digital clock using C++. <!--more--> Bjarne Stroustrup developed C++ in 1979 while working at Bell Labs. With its mix of high and low-level language characteristics, C++ is regarded as a medium language.

Prerequisites #

To follow along with this tutorial, the reader should have:

• Some basic knowledge of C++ programming language. Check this article on introduction to C++.
• An IDE installed. We will use Visual studio code in this

Table of contents #

• Project overview
• Obtaining the system current time
• Utilizing struct attributes
• Displaying the digital clock
• How to increment the time
• A complete demo of our project
• Conclusion

Project overview #

Conditions and loops are two important C++ concepts that we will practice when building the digital clock.

We'll use the time() function to get the local time.

To initialize our variables, we will use the tm structure, which contains data and time characteristics.

Let's break down the digital clock program into smaller steps to make it easier to understand and complete.

The following actions must be implemented:

• Use the time() method to determine the current system time.
• Initialize the tm structure with the hours, minutes, and seconds declarations.
• Show the current time on a digital clock using a while loop.
• Increase the hours, minutes, and seconds variables depending on the current situation and the input.
• Add a delay and then delete content from the screen.

Obtaining the current system time #

We use the following procedure to obtain the current time:

• Use the time library's time() method in C++. It provides an object of type time with the current time as a value.

• Use the localtime() method to convert a time to a tm identifier. An identifier is a name used to refer to a class of objects.

• Declare a timePtr type pointer to hold the value returned by the localtime() function.

• The tm type allows us to manipulate time using characteristics such as tm sec, tm min, tm hour, and so on.

The following syntax is used to retrieve the local time:

time_t t = time(NULL);
    tm *timePtr = localtime(&t)

Utilizing struct attributes #

The arrow operator may be used to retrieve the properties of timeptr.

Set the time sec property to the value of the sec variable that you declared.

Initialize the variable min with the tm min attribute before declaring another one with the same name.

Use the tm hour property to set the hours variable to zero. Then, declare an AM/PM timestr variable.

The code below stores the local time in variables using pointers. The if condition is used to change the local time to the 12-hour clock format.

    time_t t = time(NULL);
    tm *timePtr = localtime(&t);

    int seconds = (timePtr->tm_sec);
    int minutes = (timePtr->tm_min);
    int hrs = (timePtr->tm_hour);

Displaying the digital clock: #

while (true)
    {
        system("cls");

        cout << "The digital time is:";

        cout << "      |" << hrs << " : " << minutes << " : " << seconds << " " << endl;
    }

Since we have created our digital clock, the next step changes the time on our digital clock.

How to increment the time #

Follow the procedure below to increment the time in our digital clock:

• Increment the sec variable on every iteration of the while loop.
• Once the sec value reaches 60, increment the min variable by one. Reset the sec back to one.
• In the same way, when the min reaches 60, increment hours by one and reset the min variable to 0.
• Set the hours to 00 when it reaches 24. This is because the standard time in the 24-hour system ranges from one to twenty-four.

Use the code below to accomplish the time increment.

 while (true)
    {
        // This increases the seconds
        sec++;
        if (seconds >= 60)
        {
            seconds = 1;
            minutes++;
        }
        // This increases the minutes
        if (minutes >= 60)
        {
            minutes = 0;
            hrs++;
        }
        // This increases the hours
        if (hrs >= 24)
        {
            hrs = 00;
        }
    }

After incrementing, the last step is to add a delay and clear the screen simultaneously.

To achieve this functionality, we will use the following steps:

• Use system(cls) to clear the view.
• We will add a 1000 ms delay using the sleep() function.

while (true)
    {
        system("cls");

        cout << "The digital time is:";

        cout << "      |" << hrs << " : " << minutes << " : " << seconds << " " << endl;
        //increment sec min and hours
        sec++;
        if (seconds >= 60)
        {
            seconds = 1;
            minutes++;
        }
        // This increases the minutes
        if (minutes >= 60)
        {
            minutes = 0;
            hrs++;
        }
        // This increases the hours
        if (hrs > 24)
        {
            hrs = 00;
        }

        Sleep(1000);
    }

A complete demo of our project #

Here is the complete code for the digital clock application:

#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
#include <windows.h>
using namespace std;

int main(){
    time_t t = time(NULL);
    tm *timePtr = localtime(&t); // stores the local time of the computer.

    int seconds = (timePtr->tm_sec);
    int minutes = (timePtr->tm_min);
    int hrs = (timePtr->tm_hour);


while (true){
        system("cls");

        cout << "The digital time is :";
        // This output the message "The digital time is :"

        cout << "      |" << hrs << " : " << minutes << " : " << seconds << " " << endl;
        //increment sec min and hours
        seconds++;
        if (seconds >= 60)
        {
            seconds = 1;
            minutes++;
        }
        // This increases the minutes
        if (minutes >= 60)
        {
            minutes = 0;
            hrs++;
        }
        // This increases the hours
        if (hrs > 24)
        {
            hrs = 00;
        }

        Sleep(1000);
    }

    return 0;
}

The output will be:

Note that the displayed time will differ depending on your location.

Conclusion #

In the above tutorial, we have learned the steps required to create a digital clock. We also gained some knowledge on using if statements and while loops.

Peer Review Contributions by: Dawe Daniel