Working with Dates in Go (Golang): time, carbon, and now Libraries

Working with Dates in Go (Golang): Library Overview

Working with dates and times is a key task in any programming language. In Go (Golang), the standard library provides a powerful time package, but sometimes developers turn to third-party libraries for convenience. In this article, we will break down the main capabilities of the standard package and look at two popular libraries: carbon and now.

1. Standard time Package

The time package is the foundation for working with dates in Go. It includes the Time and Duration types, as well as functions for parsing, formatting, working with timers, and time zones.

Creating and Formatting a Date

package main

import (    "fmt"    "time")

func main() {    // Current time    now := time.Now()    fmt.Println("Now:", now)

    // Creating a specific date    date := time.Date(2025, time.March, 15, 14, 30, 0, 0, time.UTC)    fmt.Println("Specific date:", date)

    // Formatting (must use "2006-01-02 15:04:05" as reference)    fmt.Println("Format:", date.Format("02.01.2006 15:04:05"))}

Parsing a String into a Date

func main() {    // Parsing with format specification    str := "2025-03-15 14:30:00"    parsed, err := time.Parse("2006-01-02 15:04:05", str)    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }    fmt.Println("Parsed:", parsed)}

Working with Time Zones

func main() {    loc, _ := time.LoadLocation("Europe/Moscow")    moscowTime := time.Now().In(loc)    fmt.Println("Moscow time:", moscowTime)}

Difference Between Dates

func main() {    start := time.Date(2025, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, time.UTC)    end := time.Date(2025, 12, 31, 23, 59, 59, 0, time.UTC)    duration := end.Sub(start)    fmt.Printf("Difference: %v (hours: %v)", duration, duration.Hours())}

2. The carbon Library

The carbon library (github.com/golang-module/carbon) is a port of the popular PHP Carbon library for Go. It provides a convenient fluent interface for working with dates.

Installation

go get github.com/golang-module/carbon/v2

Usage Examples

package main

import (    "fmt"    "github.com/golang-module/carbon/v2")

func main() {    // Current date    now := carbon.Now()    fmt.Println("Now:", now.ToString())

    // Creating a date    date := carbon.Parse("2025-03-15 14:30:00")    fmt.Println("Parsed:", date.ToDateString())

    // Adding days    future := carbon.Now().AddDays(10)    fmt.Println("In 10 days:", future.ToDateString())

    // Difference in days    diff := carbon.Now().DiffInDays(carbon.Parse("2025-12-31"))    fmt.Printf("Days until New Year: %d days", diff)

    // Formatting    fmt.Println("Custom format:", carbon.Now().Format("d/m/Y H:i:s"))}

Convenient Methods

• StartOfDay() / EndOfDay() — start/end of day
• IsWeekend() / IsWeekday() — day of week check
• Age() — age from date of birth
• DiffForHumans() — human-readable difference (e.g., "3 days ago")

3. The now Library

The now library (github.com/jinzhu/now) from the creator of GORM is a lightweight utility for getting the beginning and end of time periods.

Installation

go get github.com/jinzhu/now

Usage Examples

package main

import (    "fmt"    "time"    "github.com/jinzhu/now")

func main() {    // Beginning of day    beginningOfDay := now.BeginningOfDay()    fmt.Println("