474
votes

I'm adding UTC time strings to Bitbucket API responses that currently only contain Amsterdam (!) time strings. For consistency with the UTC time strings returned elsewhere, the desired format is 2011-11-03 11:07:04 (followed by +00:00, but that's not germane).

What's the best way to create such a string (without a microsecond component) from a datetime instance with a microsecond component?

>>> import datetime
>>> print unicode(datetime.datetime.now())
2011-11-03 11:13:39.278026

I'll add the best option that's occurred to me as a possible answer, but there may well be a more elegant solution.

Edit: I should mention that I'm not actually printing the current time – I used datetime.now to provide a quick example. So the solution should not assume that any datetime instances it receives will include microsecond components.

13

13 Answers

950
votes

If you want to format a datetime object in a specific format that is different from the standard format, it's best to explicitly specify that format:

>>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
'2011-11-03 18:21:26'

See the documentation of datetime.strftime() for an explanation of the % directives.

190
votes
>>> import datetime
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> print unicode(now.replace(microsecond=0))
2011-11-03 11:19:07
107
votes

In Python 3.6:

from datetime import datetime
datetime.now().isoformat(' ', 'seconds')
'2017-01-11 14:41:33'

https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/datetime.html#datetime.datetime.isoformat

51
votes

This is the way I do it. ISO format:

import datetime
datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).isoformat()
# Returns: '2017-01-23T14:58:07'

You can replace the 'T' if you don't want ISO format:

datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).isoformat(' ')
# Returns: '2017-01-23 15:05:27'
17
votes

Yet another option:

>>> import time
>>> time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
'2011-11-03 11:31:28'

By default this uses local time, if you need UTC you can use the following:

>>> time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", time.gmtime())
'2011-11-03 18:32:20'
15
votes

Keep the first 19 characters that you wanted via slicing:

>>> str(datetime.datetime.now())[:19]
'2011-11-03 14:37:50'
12
votes

I usually do:

import datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()
now = now.replace(microsecond=0)  # To print now without microsecond.

# To print now:
print(now)

output:

2019-01-13 14:40:28
7
votes

Since not all datetime.datetime instances have a microsecond component (i.e. when it is zero), you can partition the string on a "." and take only the first item, which will always work:

unicode(datetime.datetime.now()).partition('.')[0]
5
votes

As of Python 3.6+, the best way of doing this is by the new timespec argument for isoformat.

isoformat(timespec='seconds', sep=' ')

Usage:

>>> datetime.now().isoformat(timespec='seconds')
'2020-10-16T18:38:21'
>>> datetime.now().isoformat(timespec='seconds', sep=' ')
'2020-10-16 18:38:35'
3
votes

We can try something like below

import datetime

date_generated = datetime.datetime.now()
date_generated.replace(microsecond=0).isoformat(' ').partition('+')[0]
2
votes

This I use because I can understand and hence remember it better (and date time format also can be customized based on your choice) :-

import datetime
moment = datetime.datetime.now()
print("{}/{}/{} {}:{}:{}".format(moment.day, moment.month, moment.year,
                                 moment.hour, moment.minute, moment.second))
1
votes

I found this to be the simplest way.

>>> t = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> t
datetime.datetime(2018, 11, 30, 17, 21, 26, 606191)
>>> t = str(t).split('.')
>>> t
['2018-11-30 17:21:26', '606191']
>>> t = t[0]
>>> t
'2018-11-30 17:21:26'
>>> 
1
votes
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> dt = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d %X")
>>> print(dt)
'2021-02-05 04:10:24'