How to Format Dates and Times in Rust

Use the chrono crate to format dates and times with the format! macro or the format method on DateTime objects.

use chrono::{DateTime, Utc};

fn main() {
    let now: DateTime<Utc> = Utc::now();
    let formatted = now.format("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S").to_string();
    println!("{formatted}");
}

Formatting dates and times in Rust uses a popular library called chrono to turn a date and time into a readable string. You define the exact layout you want, like year-month-day, and the library handles the conversion automatically. It works like a template where you fill in the specific parts of the date you need to display.