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pythonpython-3.xdatetimestring-formatting

Python display milliseconds in formatted string using `time.strftime`


I am trying to format milliseconds to formatted string preserving the milliseconds part. Here's my code:

import time

time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S:%f', time.gmtime(1515694048121/1000.0))

where 1515694048121 is a time in milliseconds. It returns me:

2018-01-11 18:07:28:f

As we can see, the millisecond portion of time is not returned.

What is correct format to include millisecond portion of time? Is '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S:%f' not correct ?


Solution

  • There is the no directive mentioned in time.strftime(...) that will return you the milliseconds. Not sure from where you got the reference to use %f. In fact time.gmtime(...) holds the precision only upto seconds.

    As a hack, in order to achieve this, you may explicitly format your string by preserving your milli second value as:

    >>> import time
    
    >>> time_in_ms = 1515694048121
    >>> time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S:{}'.format(time_in_ms%1000), time.gmtime(time_in_ms/1000.0))
    '2018-01-11 18:07:28:121'
    

    Here's the list of valid directives:

    +-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+
    | Directive |                                                                                                   Meaning                                                                                                   | Notes |
    +-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+
    | %a        | Locale’s abbreviated weekday name.                                                                                                                                                                          |       |
    | %A        | Locale’s full weekday name.                                                                                                                                                                                 |       |
    | %b        | Locale’s abbreviated month name.                                                                                                                                                                            |       |
    | %B        | Locale’s full month name.                                                                                                                                                                                   |       |
    | %c        | Locale’s appropriate date and time representation.                                                                                                                                                          |       |
    | %d        | Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31].                                                                                                                                                               |       |
    | %H        | Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23].                                                                                                                                                           |       |
    | %I        | Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12].                                                                                                                                                           |       |
    | %j        | Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366].                                                                                                                                                              |       |
    | %m        | Month as a decimal number [01,12].                                                                                                                                                                          |       |
    | %M        | Minute as a decimal number [00,59].                                                                                                                                                                         |       |
    | %p        | Locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM.                                                                                                                                                                     | (1)   |
    | %S        | Second as a decimal number [00,61].                                                                                                                                                                         | (2)   |
    | %U        | Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0.                                | (3)   |
    | %w        | Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6].                                                                                                                                                                  |       |
    | %W        | Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. All days in a new year preceding the first Monday are considered to be in week 0.                                | (3)   |
    | %x        | Locale’s appropriate date representation.                                                                                                                                                                   |       |
    | %X        | Locale’s appropriate time representation.                                                                                                                                                                   |       |
    | %y        | Year without century as a decimal number [00,99].                                                                                                                                                           |       |
    | %Y        | Year with century as a decimal number.                                                                                                                                                                      |       |
    | %z        | Time zone offset indicating a positive or negative time difference from UTC/GMT of the form +HHMM or -HHMM, where H represents decimal hour digits and M represents decimal minute digits [-23:59, +23:59]. |       |
    | %Z        | Time zone name (no characters if no time zone exists).                                                                                                                                                      |       |
    | %%        |                                                                                                                                                                                                             |       |
    +-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+