XSLT Reference
current-date()
Returns the current date as an xs:date value, stable for the duration of the transformation.
Syntax
current-date()Description
current-date() returns today’s date as an xs:date value. The returned value includes the implicit timezone of the processor. Crucially, the value is fixed for the entire transformation: all calls within one transformation return the same date, ensuring consistency across the output.
This is the typed-value counterpart to calling substring-before(string(current-dateTime()), 'T') in XSLT 1.0.
Parameters
This function takes no parameters.
Return value
xs:date — the current date in the form YYYY-MM-DD+HH:MM (with timezone offset). The date is stable for the lifetime of the transformation.
Examples
Stamp a document with today’s date
Input XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<report>
<title>Annual Summary</title>
</report>
Stylesheet:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/report">
<report>
<generated><xsl:value-of select="current-date()"/></generated>
<xsl:copy-of select="*"/>
</report>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Output (example):
<report>
<generated>2026-04-18+01:00</generated>
<title>Annual Summary</title>
</report>
Format today’s date for display
Stylesheet:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="text"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:value-of select="format-date(current-date(), '[FNn], [D] [MNn] [Y]')"/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Output (example):
Saturday, 18 April 2026
Notes
current-date()is not available in XSLT 1.0.- The value includes the processor’s implicit timezone. Use
adjust-date-to-timezone()to convert to a different offset. - To extract parts of the date, use
year-from-date(),month-from-date(), orday-from-date(). - For a combined date and time, use
current-dateTime().