Python current date to string

Python strftime()

The strftime() method returns a string representing date and time using date, time or datetime object.

Example 1: datetime to string using strftime()

The program below converts a datetime object containing current date and time to different string formats.

 from datetime import datetime now = datetime.now() # current date and time year = now.strftime("%Y") print("year:", year) month = now.strftime("%m") print("month:", month) day = now.strftime("%d") print("day:", day) time = now.strftime("%H:%M:%S") print("time:", time) date_time = now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S") print("date and time:",date_time) 

When you run the program, the output will something like be:

 year: 2018 month: 12 day: 24 time: 04:59:31 date and time: 12/24/2018, 04:59:31 

Here, year , day , time and date_time are strings, whereas now is a datetime object.

How strftime() works?

In the above program, %Y , %m , %d etc. are format codes. The strftime() method takes one or more format codes as an argument and returns a formatted string based on it.

1. We imported datetime class from the datetime module. It’s because the object of datetime class can access strftime() method.
   
2. The datetime object containing current date and time is stored in now variable.
   
3. The strftime() method can be used to create formatted strings.
   
4. The string you pass to the strftime() method may contain more than one format codes.
   

Example 2: Creating string from a timestamp

 from datetime import datetime timestamp = 1528797322 date_time = datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp) print("Date time object:", date_time) d = date_time.strftime("%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S") print("Output 2:", d) d = date_time.strftime("%d %b, %Y") print("Output 3:", d) d = date_time.strftime("%d %B, %Y") print("Output 4:", d) d = date_time.strftime("%I%p") print("Output 5:", d) 

When you run the program, the output will be:

Date time object: 2018-06-12 09:55:22 Output 2: 06/12/2018, 09:55:22 Output 3: 12 Jun, 2018 Output 4: 12 June, 2018 Output 5: 09AM 

Format Code List

The table below shows all the codes that you can pass to the strftime() method.

Directive	Meaning	Example
%a	Abbreviated weekday name.	Sun, Mon, .
%A	Full weekday name.	Sunday, Monday, .
%w	Weekday as a decimal number.	0, 1, . 6
%d	Day of the month as a zero-padded decimal.	01, 02, . 31
%-d	Day of the month as a decimal number.	1, 2, . 30
%b	Abbreviated month name.	Jan, Feb, . Dec
%B	Full month name.	January, February, .
%m	Month as a zero-padded decimal number.	01, 02, . 12
%-m	Month as a decimal number.	1, 2, . 12
%y	Year without century as a zero-padded decimal number.	00, 01, . 99
%-y	Year without century as a decimal number.	0, 1, . 99
%Y	Year with century as a decimal number.	2013, 2019 etc.
%H	Hour (24-hour clock) as a zero-padded decimal number.	00, 01, . 23
%-H	Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number.	0, 1, . 23
%I	Hour (12-hour clock) as a zero-padded decimal number.	01, 02, . 12
%-I	Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number.	1, 2, . 12
%p	Locale’s AM or PM.	AM, PM
%M	Minute as a zero-padded decimal number.	00, 01, . 59
%-M	Minute as a decimal number.	0, 1, . 59
%S	Second as a zero-padded decimal number.	00, 01, . 59
%-S	Second as a decimal number.	0, 1, . 59
%f	Microsecond as a decimal number, zero-padded on the left.	000000 — 999999
%z	UTC offset in the form +HHMM or -HHMM.
%Z	Time zone name.
%j	Day of the year as a zero-padded decimal number.	001, 002, . 366
%-j	Day of the year as a decimal number.	1, 2, . 366
%U	Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week). All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0.	00, 01, . 53
%W	Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week). All days in a new year preceding the first Monday are considered to be in week 0.	00, 01, . 53
%c	Locale’s appropriate date and time representation.	Mon Sep 30 07:06:05 2013
%x	Locale’s appropriate date representation.	09/30/13
%X	Locale’s appropriate time representation.	07:06:05
%%	A literal ‘%’ character.	%

Example 3: Locale’s appropriate date and time

 from datetime import datetime timestamp = 1528797322 date_time = datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp) d = date_time.strftime("%c") print("Output 1:", d) d = date_time.strftime("%x") print("Output 2:", d) d = date_time.strftime("%X") print("Output 3:", d) 

When you run the program, the output will be:

 Output 1: Tue Jun 12 09:55:22 2018 Output 2: 06/12/18 Output 3: 09:55:22 

Format codes %c , %x and %X are used for locale’s appropriate date and time representation.

We also recommend you to check Python strptime(). The strptime() method creates a datetime object from a string.

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How to convert DateTime to string in Python

In this post, we are going to learn how to convert DateTime to string in Python using different code examples. To get the date in a different format in Python we use strftime(),format() functions and f-string.We will learn about all these functions in this post.

Python Strftime() Function

The datetime class has a member function strftime(). The strftime() function of the DateTime class takes two arguments in which the first argument is the string representation of datetime and the second is the format of the input string.

Syntax

datetime.strftime(Format_String)

Steps to convert DateTime to string in Python

• We need to import datetime module in our program and after that we can use the strftime() and format() functions to convert a datetime object to string in Python.
• We can choose datetime to string formats as per our requirement by using format codes given in below table at the end of this article.

1. How how to convert DateTime to string in Python using strftime()

In this example, we are converting datetime to string in the format of DD-MMM-YYYY HH:MM:SS using the strftime() function.

Program Example

from datetime import datetime dt_obj = datetime.now() dt_to_text = dt_obj.strftime("All are informed that\n %A %d %B %Y is board metting at : %I:%M %p") print(time_to_Str )

All are informed that Wednesday 21 July 2021 is board metting at : 12:33 AM

3. Convert Python date to string

Sometime instead of datetime we need to convert only Python date to string in different formats. In this example we are converting Python date only to differnt string formats.

Program Example

from datetime import datetime dt_obj = datetime.now() #Date Month Year Date_to_str = dt_obj.strftime("%d %b, %Y") print("dd/mm/year:", Date_to_str) #Full Textual month name, day and year Dt_st_Frmt = dt_obj.strftime("%B %d, %Y") print("month name/day/year :", Dt_st_Frmt) #mm/dd/yyyy dt_frt = dt_obj.strftime("%m/%d/%Y") print("mm/dd/yyyy:",dt_frt )

dd/mm/year: 20 Jul, 2021 month name/day/year : July 20, 2021 mm/dd/yyyy: 07/20/2021

4. Convert Python Time to string

Sometimes we need to convert Python time into different string formats as we are doing in the below example.

Program Example

from datetime import datetime dt_obj = datetime.now() time_to_Str = dt_obj.strftime("%H:%M:%S.%f") print("hh:mm:ss:ms =",time_to_Str )

5. Using format() function

The format() function can be used to convert datetime to different string formats. It is provided with curly brackets followed by a colon mark.

Program example

from datetime import datetime dt_obj = datetime.now() print('Day/mm/dd/yyyy : ', ''.format(dt_obj)) print('mm/dd/yyyy : ', ''.format(dt_obj)) print('mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss : ',''.format(dt_obj)) print('mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss:ms : ' ,''.format(dt_obj))

Day/mm/dd/yyyy : Wed, July 21 2021 mm/dd/yyyy : 07/21/2021 mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss : 07/21/21 09:05 08 mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss:ms : 07/21/21 09:05 08 993077

6. How to convert DateTime to string in Python sing f-string

By using f-string, the datetime can be converted into different string formats. The f-string is evaluated at run-time. We can use any valid Python expression in them.

from datetime import datetime dt_obj = datetime.now() dt_to_str = f'The date to string is mm/dd/yyyy : ' dt_to_str1 = f'The date to string mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss:ms: ' print(dt_to_str) print(dt_to_str1)

The date to string is mm/dd/yyyy : Jul 21, 2021 The date to string mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss:ms: 07/21/21 17:36 32

Table of DateTime format code in Python

These are list of format code available in Python as per python docs

Format codes	Description	Example
%a	Weekday as the abbreviated name	Sun, Mon, …, Sat
%A	Weekday as locale’s full name	Sunday,…Saturday
%w	Weekday as a decimal number, 0 is Sunday,6 is Saturday.	0, 1, …, 6
%d	Day of the month as a zero-padded decimal number.	01, 02, …, 31
%b	Month as locale’s abbreviated name.	Jan, Feb, …, Dec
%m	Month as a zero-padded decimal number.	01, 02, …, 12
%B	Month as locale’s full name.	January, February.
%y	Year without century	00, 01, …, 99
%Y	Year with century	0001, 0002, …, 9998, 9999
%H	Hour (24-hour clock) as a zero-padded decimal number.	00, 01, …, 23
%I	Hour (12-hour clock) as a zero-padded decimal number.	01, 02, …, 12
%p	Locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM.	AM, PM
%M	Minute as a zero-padded decimal number.	00, 01, …, 59
%s	The second is a zero-padded decimal number.	00, 01, …, 59
%f	Microsecond as a decimal number, zero-padded on the left.	000000, 000001, …, 999999

Summary

In this post, we have learned different ways of How to convert DateTime to string in Python with code example by Using strftime(), format() functions. We can change the datetime to string format as per our requirment using any of both methods by passing format code as given in above table.

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