C Program to Display Greeting Based on Time

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to write a C program that displays a greeting message ("Good Morning", "Good Afternoon", or "Good Evening") based on the current time. This simple program is useful for practicing working with time functions in C and conditional logic.

What is a Time-based Greeting?

A time-based greeting changes depending on the current time. The program will determine the current hour and display one of the following messages:

• Good Morning if the time is between 5 AM and 11:59 AM.
• Good Afternoon if the time is between 12 PM and 4:59 PM.
• Good Evening if the time is from 5 PM to 4:59 AM.

This type of program can be used in interactive applications to provide a more personalized user experience.

Greeting Program Based on Time in C

Here is a C program that uses the time.h library to fetch the current system time and display an appropriate greeting based on the hour:

Example:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>  // Necessary for working with time functions

int main() {
    time_t currentTime;
    struct tm *localTime;
    int hour;

    // Get the current system time
    time(&currentTime);

    // Convert it to local time format
    localTime = localtime(&currentTime);

    // Extract the hour from the local time structure
    hour = localTime->tm_hour;

    // Display appropriate greeting based on the current hour
    if (hour >= 5 && hour < 12) {
        printf("Good Morning!\n");
    } else if (hour >= 12 && hour < 17) {
        printf("Good Afternoon!\n");
    } else {
        printf("Good Evening!\n");
    }

    return 0;
}

Program Output:

For example, if the current time is 10 AM, the output will be:

Good Morning!

If the current time is 3 PM, the output will be:

Good Afternoon!

If the current time is 7 PM, the output will be:

Good Evening!

Scenario Example:

Consider a scenario where the current time is 14:30 (2:30 PM). The program will extract the hour as 14 and match it with the condition (hour >= 12 && hour < 17), resulting in the message "Good Afternoon!" being displayed.

Conclusion

This tutorial has demonstrated how to create a simple C program that displays a greeting message based on the current time. The program uses the time.h library to get the current system time and checks the hour to determine the appropriate greeting. This is a great way to practice working with time functions and conditionals in C.