Working with dates is a common task in any programming ecosystem. Whether you’re logging events or performing time-centric analyses, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll encounter the need to handle and format dates in Python. The date formatter is an extremely useful tool for such tasks, as it provides an easy way to convert date and time objects into a variety of string representations, thereby providing flexibility in how the dates can be displayed or used.
The primary library involved in date formatting in Python is datetime. This library is a part of Python’s standard set of offerings, meaning it can be used without needing to install any third-party libraries before it can be imported and used. With this library, handling dates, times, datetimes, timedeltas, and more is a breeze.
The process of formatting a date using Python’s datetime library can be broken down into three primary steps: (1) importing the library, (2) creating a date object, and (3) applying the desired string format to the date object.
Code example
Below is an example of this process in action. In this example, we’ll create a datetime object representing the current date and time, then format it into a string representation:
import datetime # step 1: import library
now = datetime.datetime.now() # step 2: create date object
formatted_now = now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S") # step 3: format date
print(formatted_now) # will print out the date in the following format: "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS"
In this example, the datetime object ‘now’ is formatted using the strftime method, which converts a datetime object into a string format. The format given to the strftime method determines how the resultant string is formatted: “%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S” dictates that the year should be represented as a four-digit number, followed by the month and day as two-digit numbers, and the hours, minutes, and seconds also as two-digit numbers.
Understanding strftime
The strftime method stands for “string format time”. It’s a method provided by the date, datetime, and time objects, and accepts a format string as its parameter. This format string contains “format codes”, which are special directives that get converted into certain components of the date or time.
Here are few frequently-used strftime format codes:
- %Y: Four-digit year
- %m: Two-digit month
- %d: Two-digit day
- %H: Two-digit hour (24-hour format)
- %M: Two-digit minutes
- %S: Two-digit seconds
Additional date formatting libraries
While the datetime library is part of Python’s standard offerings, there are other libraries available that offer additional features for working with dates. Some of these include:
- dateutil: Supplement to the datetime module, adding some convenient features
- pytz: Comprehensive timezone support
- arrow: “Dates and times made easy”, attempts to simplify and improve date manipulation and formatting
In summary, date formatting is a crucial task in many Python projects, and one that is made relatively straightforward by Python’s rich set of date-handling and formatting tools. By understanding how to use these tools, we can make our lives significantly easier when it comes to tasks involving dates and times.
