Convert gmtime() to 4 byte hex

Question

I have the time in this format:

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 03:55:24

and I want to convert it to a 4 byte hexadecimal value. My question is similar to this one: question, but the difference is that I have a different format, and I use the gmtime() function because I want the date since the Epoch. This is what I tried so far (by trying to break the code from the answer of the similar question into smaller parts):

ut = time.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S ", time.gmtime())
time.strptime(ut, '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S')

But I get the error:

ValueError: uncoverted data remains:

Could you please help me? I know that it is a simple question, but I cannot see what is the problem.

`gmtime()` returns UTC time. Given UTC time, you can get "seconds since Epoch" number but they are **different** things. Are you sure that the input time string (e.g., "Fri, 19 Dec 2014 03:55:24") is in UTC (and not in you local timezone)? — jfs, Dec 20 '14 at 09:57

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 19 '14 at 12:35

0

Remove the trailing space in the format string used in

ut = time.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S ", time.gmtime())

The line should read:

ut = time.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S", time.gmtime())

Without the space after %S, it runs on my side!

answered Dec 19 '14 at 12:35

jkalden

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score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

There are several steps:

Parse rfc 5322 time string into an object that represent the broken-down time

import email.utils
time_tuple = email.utils.parsedate("Fri, 19 Dec 2014 03:55:24")

Convert the broken-down time into "seconds since Epoch" number

import calendar
timestamp = calendar.timegm(time_tuple) # assume input time is in UTC

Print the number in hex format

print('%08X' % timestamp)
# -> 5493A1AC

Convert gmtime() to 4 byte hex

2 Answers2