Python Time strptime() Method

Description

The strptime() method parses a string representing a time according to the given format. The return value is a struct_time structure returned by gmtime() or localtime().

The format parameter uses the same instructions as strftime(); the default is “%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y”, which matches the format returned by ctime().

If the string cannot be parsed according to the given format, or if there is excess data after parsing, a ValueError exception will be raised.

Syntax

The strptime() method has the following syntax:

time.strptime(string[, format])

Parameters

• string − This is a string representation of a time, parsed according to the given format.

• format − This is a directive for parsing the given string.

Directives

The following directives can be embedded in the format string:

• %a − Abbreviated day of the week

• %A − Full day of the week

• %b − Abbreviated month of the month

• %B − Full month of the month

• %c − Recommended date and time format

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

• %d − Day of the month (01 to 31)

• %D − Same as %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 – Same as %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 – AM or PM depending on the given time value

• %r – AM or PM time

• %R – 24-hour time

• %S – Seconds

• %t – Tab character

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

• %u – 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 is the first week in the current year with at least 4 days and Monday as the first day of the week

  • %W – Week number of the year, starting with the first Monday of the week

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

  • %x – Preferred date representation without time

  • %X – Preferred time representation without date

  • %y – Year without century (range 00 to 99)

  • %Y – Year including century

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

  • %% – Literal % character

Return Value

The return value is the struct_time returned by gmtime() or localtime().

Example

The following example demonstrates the use of the strptime() method.

import time
struct_time = time.strptime("20 04 2023", "%d %m %Y")
print ("tuple : ", struct_time)

When we run the above program, it will produce the following output

tuple : time.struct_time(tm_year=2023, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=20, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=110, tm_isdst=-1)