PyQt5 – Create a digital clock

In this article we will see how to create a digital clock using PyQt5, this digital clock will basically tells the current time in the 24 hour format.

In order to create a digital clock we have to do the following:

1. Create a vertical layout
2. Create label to show the current time and put it in the layout and align it to the center.
3. Create a QTimer object.
4. Add action to the QTimer object such that after every 1sec action method get called.
5. Inside the action method get the current time and show that time with the help of label.

Below is the implementation:

Python3

# importing required librarie
import sys
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QVBoxLayout, QLabel
from PyQt5.QtGui import QFont
from PyQt5.QtCore import QTimer, QTime, Qt


class Window(QWidget):

    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()

        # setting geometry of main window
        self.setGeometry(100, 100, 800, 400)

        # creating a vertical layout
        layout = QVBoxLayout()

        # creating font object
        font = QFont('Arial', 120, QFont.Bold)

        # creating a label object
        self.label = QLabel()

        # setting center alignment to the label
        self.label.setAlignment(Qt.AlignCenter)

        # setting font to the label
        self.label.setFont(font)

        # adding label to the layout
        layout.addWidget(self.label)

        # setting the layout to main window
        self.setLayout(layout)

        # creating a timer object
        timer = QTimer(self)

        # adding action to timer
        timer.timeout.connect(self.showTime)

        # update the timer every second
        timer.start(1000)

    # method called by timer
    def showTime(self):

        # getting current time
        current_time = QTime.currentTime()

        # converting QTime object to string
        label_time = current_time.toString('hh:mm:ss')

        # showing it to the label
        self.label.setText(label_time)


# create pyqt5 app
App = QApplication(sys.argv)

# create the instance of our Window
window = Window()

# showing all the widgets
window.show()

# start the app
App.exit(App.exec_())

Output :

Code Explanation:

1. The code starts by importing the required libraries.
2. Then it creates a class called Window and initializes it with __init__() method.
3. Next, the code sets the geometry of the main window to 100×100 pixels and 800×400 pixels respectively.
4. It then creates a vertical layout object which is used for arranging widgets in order vertically on the screen.
5. The next step is creating font object using QFont class from PyQt5 library followed by creating a label object using QLabel class from PyQt5 library.
6. Finally, the code adds a label to the layout and sets its alignment to Qt’s align center option before setting font of label to Arial font with a size 120 points bold style.
7. The code is a simple example of how to create a window and show it.