title: how could i get the system current date and time in codeigniter
body: <p>I don't have much idea about automatic counter,working with date.I need to write a function to set counter for certain date. I have a table with the following structure.</p>
  
  <pre><code>CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `service_taxdate` (
    `tax` int(20) NOT NULL,
    `start_date` date NOT NULL,
    `end_date` date NOT NULL
  ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I need to get the system time and set the start date and when I reach end date, I need to insert an alert message. can some one help with code.</p>