How do I convert date to Day/Month/Year (20/Jan/2012) in python

Question

I have a script that has been written that I need to change the date on, when the script runs it outputs this message

output_messaging("*** DATA REFRESH FOR STREETWORKS DATA EXECUTED ON " + 
    str(datetime.date.today().day) + "/" + str(datetime.date.today().month) + "/" +            
    str(datetime.date.today().year) + " AT " + str(datetime.datetime.now().hour) + ':' +   
    str(datetime.datetime.now().minute) + ':' + str(datetime.datetime.now().second) + " ***\n\n")

Which gives

*** DATA REFRESH FOR STREETWORKS DATA EXECUTED ON 20/2/2012 AT 18:3 ***

I need the date converted to

20/Feb/2012 , how do i do this?

Use time.strftime for date formatting. [See this post.][1] [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4855406/how-to-convert-a-time-to-a-string — Art Swri, Feb 28 '12 at 16:37

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 28 '12 at 16:41

2

output_messaging("*** DATA REFRESH FOR STREETWORKS DATA EXECUTED ON {0:%d/%b/%Y} AT {0:%H:%M} ***".format(datetime.datetime.now()))

prints

*** DATA REFRESH FOR STREETWORKS DATA EXECUTED ON 28/Feb/2012 AT 17:41 ***

More information about datetime formatting

answered Feb 28 '12 at 16:41

eumiro

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I'd love to know how the string `format` ends up calling `strftime`. – Mark Ransom Feb 28 '12 at 16:58

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 09:59

Use strftime for this -- it's way easier than doing a bunch of custom concatenation. There's a table of formatting conventions here.

>>> s = "*** DATA REFRESH FOR STREETWORKS DATA EXECUTED ON "\
...     "%d/%b/%y AT %H:%M:%S ***\n\n"
>>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime(s)
'*** DATA REFRESH FOR STREETWORKS DATA EXECUTED ON 28/Feb/12 AT 11:44:03 ***\n\n'

As eumiro's answer indicates, you can also invert the above call with a slightly modified format string like so:

>>> s = "*** DATA REFRESH FOR STREETWORKS DATA EXECUTED ON "\
...     "{0:%d/%b/%y} AT {0:%H:%M:%S} ***\n\n"
>>> s.format(datetime.datetime.now())
'*** DATA REFRESH FOR STREETWORKS DATA EXECUTED ON 28/Feb/12 AT 13:41:10 ***\n\n'

This works because format simply calls the (shockingly under-documented) __format__ method of the datetime.datetime object. For example:

>>> datetime.datetime.now().__format__('The current month is %B')
'The current month is February'

This works for other types too:

>>> (16).__format__('x')
'10'

For more on __format__, see PEP 3101

Looks like a correct solution so +1 from me. If you suspect someone has been voting inappropriately you can flag it for moderator attention. — Mark Ransom, Feb 28 '12 at 17:01
@MarkRansom, for what it's worth, I also wondered how eumiro's approach worked. The above is what I figured out with some sleuthing. But I'm surprised at how poorly-documented this part of Python is. — senderle, Feb 28 '12 at 18:50

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 28 '12 at 16:42

1

>>> from datetime import date
>>> day = date.today()
>>> day.strftime('%d/%b/%y')
'28/Feb/12'

answered Feb 28 '12 at 16:42

Fred

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 28 '12 at 16:41

0

import datetime
print datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%d/%b/%Y')
# 28/Feb/2012

answered Feb 28 '12 at 16:41

Dzinx

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How do I convert date to Day/Month/Year (20/Jan/2012) in python

4 Answers4