Python Time strftime() Method

Description

The strftime() method converts a time represented by a tuple or struct_time returned by gmtime() or localtime() to a string specified by the format argument.

If “t” is not provided, the current time as returned by localtime() is used. format must be a string. If any field in “t” is out of the allowed range, a ValueError exception is raised.

Syntax

The syntax of the strftime() method is as follows –

time.strftime(format[, t])

Parameters

• t – This is the time in seconds to be formatted.

• format – This directive is used to format a given time.

Directives

The following directives can be embedded in the format string –

• %a – Abbreviated weekday name

• %A – Full weekday name

• %b – Abbreviated month name

• %B – Full month name

• %c – Preferred date and time representation

• %C – Century (year divided by 100, range 00 to 99)

• %d – Day of the month (01 to 31)

• %D – Equivalent to %m/%d/%y

• %e – Day of the month (1 to 31)

• %g – Like %G, but without the century

• %G – Four-digit year corresponding to the ISO week number (see %V)

• %h – Equivalent to %b

• %H – Hour using a 24-hour clock (00 to 23)

• %I – Hour using a 12-hour clock (01 to 12)

• %j – Day of the year (001 to 366)

• %m – Month (01 to 12)

• %M – Minutes

• %n – Newline character

• %p – Displays AM or PM based on the given time value

• %r – AM and PM time representations

• %R – 24-hour time

• %S – Seconds

• %t – Tab character

• %T – Current time, equivalent to %H:%M:%S

• %u – Numeric representation of the day of the week (1 to 7), with Monday as 1. Note: On Sun Solaris, Sunday is 1.

• %U – Week number of the current year, starting with the first Sunday as the first day of week 1.

• %V – ISO 8601 week number of the current year (01 to 53), where week 1 has at least 4 days and starts with Monday as the first day of the week.

• %W – Week number of the current year, starting with the first Monday as the first day of week 1.

• %w – Day of the week as a decimal, with Sunday as 0.

• %x – Preferred date representation without time.

• %X – Preferred time representation without date.

• %y – Year (range 00 to 99)

• %Y – Year including century

• %Z or %z – Time zone, name, or abbreviation

• %% – Use the percent sign directly

Return Value

This method does not return any value.

Example

The following example shows the use of the strftime() method.

import time
t = (2023, 4, 20, 10, 39, 45, 1, 48, 0)
t = time.mktime(t)
print (time.strftime("%b %d %Y %H:%M:%S", time.localtime(t)))

When we run the above program, it produces the following output –

Apr 20 2023 10:39:45