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How should I read the sep='T' from the FormatISOCombined(self, sep='T') function documentation from wxPython?

Let's say I have this portion of code:

import wx

now = wx.DateTime.Now()
print (wx.DateTime.FormatISOCombined(now))

which gives something like

2021-03-02T20:47:53

OK. Now, instead of the T character, I want to use something else – lets' say a space, but not limited to. The documentation for FormatISOCombined(self, sep='T') says:

The sep parameter default value produces the result exactly corresponding to the ISO standard, but it can also be useful to use a space as separator if a more human-readable combined date-time representation is needed.

Parameters

sep (int) –

but I don't understand how should I read this.

I tried sep = ' ' which gives ... argument 2 has unexpected type 'str', which seems correct, as the Parameters description explicitly says (int); however, this is confusing versus the sep='T' in the function definition.

I tried sep = 0x20 which gives ... argument 2 has unexpected type 'int', which is why I don't understand anything anymore.

So, how should I read the documentation ?

Solution

  • It's a bit of a mystery and probably either a bug or a documentation error.
    The source code simply inserts the separator between the date and time

    wxString FormatISOCombined(char sep = 'T') const
    { return FormatISODate() + sep + FormatISOTime(); }

    So pragmatically, you should probably do the same, at least you won't be breaking anything.

    print (wx.DateTime.FormatISODate(now)+" "+wx.DateTime.FormatISOTime(now))
2021-03-03 09:15:05

    Edit 2022:

    Ran into this problem myself and the answer, weirdly, is that it is expecting a single character bytes object, so the real answer is:

    >>> print (wx.DateTime.Now().FormatISOCombined(sep=b' '))
2022-12-07 17:29:24