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<title>6.10.7 strftime() Behavior
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<H2><A NAME=
"SECTION0081070000000000000000">
6.10.7 <tt class=
"method">strftime()
</tt> Behavior
</A>
<tt class=
"class">date
</tt>,
<tt class=
"class">datetime
</tt>, and
<tt class=
"class">time
</tt>
objects all support a
<code>strftime(
<var>format
</var>)
</code>
method, to create a string representing the time under the control of
an explicit format string. Broadly speaking,
<code>d.strftime(fmt)
</code>
acts like the
<tt class=
"module"><a href=
"module-time.html">time
</a></tt> module's
<code>time.strftime(fmt, d.timetuple())
</code>
although not all objects support a
<tt class=
"method">timetuple()
</tt> method.
For
<tt class=
"class">time
</tt> objects, the format codes for
year, month, and day should not be used, as time objects have no such
values. If they're used anyway,
<code>1900</code> is substituted for the
year, and
<code>0</code> for the month and day.
For
<tt class=
"class">date
</tt> objects, the format codes for hours, minutes, and
seconds should not be used, as
<tt class=
"class">date
</tt> objects have no such
values. If they're used anyway,
<code>0</code> is substituted for them.
For a naive object, the
<code>%z
</code> and
<code>%Z
</code> format codes are
replaced by empty strings.
<DD><tt class=
"method">utcoffset()
</tt> is transformed into a
5-character string of
the form +HHMM or -HHMM, where HH is a
2-digit string giving the
number of UTC offset hours, and MM is a
2-digit string giving the
number of UTC offset minutes. For example, if
<tt class=
"method">utcoffset()
</tt> returns
<code>timedelta(hours=-
3, minutes=-
30)
</code>,
<code>%z
</code> is replaced with the string
<code>'-
0330'
</code>.
<DD>If
<tt class=
"method">tzname()
</tt> returns
<code>None
</code>,
<code>%Z
</code> is replaced
by an empty string. Otherwise
<code>%Z
</code> is replaced by the returned
value, which must be a string.
The full set of format codes supported varies across platforms,
because Python calls the platform C library's
<tt class=
"function">strftime()
</tt>
function, and platform variations are common. The documentation for
Python's
<tt class=
"module"><a href=
"module-time.html">time
</a></tt> module lists the format codes that the C
standard (
1989 version) requires, and those work on all platforms
with a standard C implementation. Note that the
1999 version of the
C standard added additional format codes.
The exact range of years for which
<tt class=
"method">strftime()
</tt> works also
varies across platforms. Regardless of platform, years before
1900
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<span class=
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2.4.2, documentation updated on
28 September
2005.
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