3.11.

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datetime — Basic date and time types

Source code: Lib/datetime.py

The datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times.

While date and time arithmetic is supported, the focus of the implementation is on efficient attribute extraction
for output formatting and manipulation.

See also:

Module calendar
General calendar related functions.

Module time
Time access and conversions.

Module zoneinfo
Concrete time zones representing the IANA time zone database.

Package dateutil
Third-party library with expanded time zone and parsing support.

Aware and Naive Objects

Date and time objects may be categorized as “aware” or “naive” depending on whether or not they include
timezone information.

With sufficient knowledge of applicable algorithmic and political time adjustments, such as time zone and
daylight saving time information, an aware object can locate itself relative to other aware objects. An aware
object represents a specific moment in time that is not open to interpretation. [1]

A naive object does not contain enough information to unambiguously locate itself relative to other date/time
objects. Whether a naive object represents Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), local time, or time in some
other timezone is purely up to the program, just like it is up to the program whether a particular number
represents metres, miles, or mass. Naive objects are easy to understand and to work with, at the cost of
ignoring some aspects of reality.

For applications requiring aware objects, datetime and time objects have an optional time zone information
attribute, tzinfo , that can be set to an instance of a subclass of the abstract tzinfo class. These tzinfo
objects capture information about the offset from UTC time, the time zone name, and whether daylight saving
time is in effect.

Only one concrete tzinfo class, the timezone class, is supplied by the datetime module. The timezone
class can represent simple timezones with fixed offsets from UTC, such as UTC itself or North American EST
and EDT timezones. Supporting timezones at deeper levels of detail is up to the application. The rules for time
adjustment across the world are more political than rational, change frequently, and there is no standard
suitable for every application aside from UTC.

Constants
The datetime module exports the following constants:
datetime.MINYEAR
The smallest year number allowed in a date or datetime object. MINYEAR is 1 .

datetime.MAXYEAR
The largest year number allowed in a date or datetime object. MAXYEAR is 9999 .

datetime.UTC
Alias for the UTC timezone singleton datetime.timezone.utc .

New in version 3.11.

Available Types
class datetime.date
An idealized naive date, assuming the current Gregorian calendar always was, and always will be, in
effect. Attributes: year , month , and day .

class datetime.time
An idealized time, independent of any particular day, assuming that every day has exactly 24*60*60
seconds. (There is no notion of “leap seconds” here.) Attributes: hour , minute , second , microsecond ,
and tzinfo .

class datetime.datetime
A combination of a date and a time. Attributes: year , month , day , hour , minute , second , microsecond ,
and tzinfo .

class datetime.timedelta
A duration expressing the difference between two date , time , or datetime instances to microsecond
resolution.

class datetime.tzinfo
An abstract base class for time zone information objects. These are used by the datetime and time
classes to provide a customizable notion of time adjustment (for example, to account for time zone and/or
daylight saving time).

class datetime.timezone
A class that implements the tzinfo abstract base class as a fixed offset from the UTC.

New in version 3.2.

Objects of these types are immutable.

Subclass relationships:

object
timedelta
tzinfo
timezone
time
date
datetime

Common Properties

The date , datetime , time , and timezone types share these common features:

Objects of these types are immutable.

 Objects of these types are hashable, meaning that they can be used as dictionary keys.
Objects of these types support efficient pickling via the pickle module.
Determining if an Object is Aware or Naive

Objects of the date type are always naive.

An object of type time or datetime may be aware or naive.

A datetime object d is aware if both of the following hold:

1. d.tzinfo is not None

2. d.tzinfo.utcoffset(d) does not return None

Otherwise, d is naive.

A time object t is aware if both of the following hold:

1. t.tzinfo is not None

2. t.tzinfo.utcoffset(None) does not return None .

Otherwise, t is naive.

The distinction between aware and naive doesn’t apply to timedelta objects.

timedelta Objects

A timedelta object represents a duration, the difference between two dates or times.

class datetime.timedelta(days=0, seconds=0, microseconds=0, milliseconds=0, minutes=0,

hours=0, weeks=0)
All arguments are optional and default to 0 . Arguments may be integers or floats, and may be positive or
negative.

Only days, seconds and microseconds are stored internally. Arguments are converted to those units:

A millisecond is converted to 1000 microseconds.

A minute is converted to 60 seconds.
An hour is converted to 3600 seconds.
A week is converted to 7 days.

and days, seconds and microseconds are then normalized so that the representation is unique, with

0 <= microseconds < 1000000

0 <= seconds < 3600*24 (the number of seconds in one day)
-999999999 <= days <= 999999999

The following example illustrates how any arguments besides days, seconds and microseconds are
“merged” and normalized into those three resulting attributes:

>>> from datetime import timedelta >>>

>>> delta = timedelta(
... days=50,
... seconds=27,
... microseconds=10,
... milliseconds=29000,
... minutes=5,
... hours=8,
... weeks=2
... )
 >>> # Only days, seconds, and microseconds remain
>>> delta
datetime.timedelta(days=64, seconds=29156, microseconds=10)

If any argument is a float and there are fractional microseconds, the fractional microseconds left over
from all arguments are combined and their sum is rounded to the nearest microsecond using round-half-
to-even tiebreaker. If no argument is a float, the conversion and normalization processes are exact (no
information is lost).

If the normalized value of days lies outside the indicated range, OverflowError is raised.

Note that normalization of negative values may be surprising at first. For example:

>>> from datetime import timedelta >>>

>>> d = timedelta(microseconds=-1)
>>> (d.days, d.seconds, d.microseconds)
(-1, 86399, 999999)

Class attributes:

timedelta.min
The most negative timedelta object, timedelta(-999999999) .

timedelta.max
The most positive timedelta object, timedelta(days=999999999, hours=23, minutes=59,
seconds=59, microseconds=999999) .

timedelta.resolution
The smallest possible difference between non-equal timedelta objects, timedelta(microseconds=1) .

Note that, because of normalization, timedelta.max > -timedelta.min . -timedelta.max is not

representable as a timedelta object.

Instance attributes (read-only):

Attribute Value

days Between -999999999 and 999999999 inclusive

seconds Between 0 and 86399 inclusive

microseconds Between 0 and 999999 inclusive

Supported operations:

Operation Result

Sum of t2 and t3. Afterwards t1-t2 == t3 and t1-t3 == t2 are

t1 = t2 + t3
true. (1)

Difference of t2 and t3. Afterwards t1 == t2 - t3 and t2 == t1 +

t1 = t2 - t3
t3 are true. (1)(6)

Delta multiplied by an integer. Afterwards t1 // i == t2 is true,

t1 = t2 * i or t1 = i * t2
provided i != 0 .

In general, t1 * i == t1 * (i-1) + t1 is true. (1)

 Operation Result

Delta multiplied by a float. The result is rounded to the nearest

t1 = t2 * f or t1 = f * t2
multiple of timedelta.resolution using round-half-to-even.

Division (3) of overall duration t2 by interval unit t3. Returns a

f = t2 / t3
float object.

Delta divided by a float or an int. The result is rounded to the

t1 = t2 / f or t1 = t2 / i nearest multiple of timedelta.resolution using round-half-to-
even.

The floor is computed and the remainder (if any) is thrown

t1 = t2 // i or t1 = t2 // t3
away. In the second case, an integer is returned. (3)

t1 = t2 % t3 The remainder is computed as a timedelta object. (3)

Computes the quotient and the remainder: q = t1 // t2 (3)

q, r = divmod(t1, t2)
and r = t1 % t2 . q is an integer and r is a timedelta object.

+t1 Returns a timedelta object with the same value. (2)

equivalent to timedelta (-t1.days, -t1.seconds, -

-t1
t1.microseconds), and to t1* -1. (1)(4)

equivalent to +t when t.days >= 0 , and to -t when t.days <

abs(t)
0 . (2)

Returns a string in the form [D day[s],

str(t) ][H]H:MM:SS[.UUUUUU] , where D is negative for negative t .
(5)

Returns a string representation of the timedelta object as a

repr(t)
constructor call with canonical attribute values.

Notes:

1. This is exact but may overflow.

2. This is exact and cannot overflow.

3. Division by 0 raises ZeroDivisionError .

4. -timedelta.max is not representable as a timedelta object.

5. String representations of timedelta objects are normalized similarly to their internal representation.
This leads to somewhat unusual results for negative timedeltas. For example:

>>> timedelta(hours=-5) >>>

datetime.timedelta(days=-1, seconds=68400)
>>> print(_)
-1 day, 19:00:00

6. The expression t2 - t3 will always be equal to the expression t2 + (-t3) except when t3 is equal to
timedelta.max ; in that case the former will produce a result while the latter will overflow.

In addition to the operations listed above, timedelta objects support certain additions and subtractions with
date and datetime objects (see below).
Changed in version 3.2: Floor division and true division of a timedelta object by another timedelta object
are now supported, as are remainder operations and the divmod() function. True division and multiplication of
a timedelta object by a float object are now supported.

Comparisons of timedelta objects are supported, with some caveats.

The comparisons == or != always return a bool , no matter the type of the compared object:

>>> from datetime import timedelta >>>

>>> delta1 = timedelta(seconds=57)
>>> delta2 = timedelta(hours=25, seconds=2)
>>> delta2 != delta1
True
>>> delta2 == 5
False

For all other comparisons (such as < and > ), when a timedelta object is compared to an object of a different
type, TypeError is raised:

>>> delta2 > delta1 >>>

True
>>> delta2 > 5
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: '>' not supported between instances of 'datetime.timedelta' and 'int'

In Boolean contexts, a timedelta object is considered to be true if and only if it isn’t equal to timedelta(0) .

Instance methods:

timedelta.total_seconds()
Return the total number of seconds contained in the duration. Equivalent to td /
timedelta(seconds=1) . For interval units other than seconds, use the division form directly (e.g. td /
timedelta(microseconds=1) ).

Note that for very large time intervals (greater than 270 years on most platforms) this method will lose
microsecond accuracy.

New in version 3.2.

Examples of usage: timedelta

An additional example of normalization:

>>> # Components of another_year add up to exactly 365 days >>>

>>> from datetime import timedelta
>>> year = timedelta(days=365)
>>> another_year = timedelta(weeks=40, days=84, hours=23,
... minutes=50, seconds=600)
>>> year == another_year
True
>>> year.total_seconds()
31536000.0

Examples of timedelta arithmetic:

>>> from datetime import timedelta >>>

>>> year = timedelta(days=365)
>>> ten_years = 10 * year
>>> ten_years
datetime.timedelta(days=3650)
>>> ten_years.days // 365
10
>>> nine_years = ten_years - year
>>> nine_years
datetime.timedelta(days=3285)
>>> three_years = nine_years // 3
>>> three_years, three_years.days // 365
(datetime.timedelta(days=1095), 3)

date Objects

A date object represents a date (year, month and day) in an idealized calendar, the current Gregorian
calendar indefinitely extended in both directions.

January 1 of year 1 is called day number 1, January 2 of year 1 is called day number 2, and so on. [2]

class datetime.date(year, month, day)

All arguments are required. Arguments must be integers, in the following ranges:

MINYEAR <= year <= MAXYEAR

1 <= month <= 12
1 <= day <= number of days in the given month and year

If an argument outside those ranges is given, ValueError is raised.

Other constructors, all class methods:

classmethod date.today()
Return the current local date.

This is equivalent to date.fromtimestamp(time.time()) .

classmethod date.fromtimestamp(timestamp)
Return the local date corresponding to the POSIX timestamp, such as is returned by time.time() .

This may raise OverflowError , if the timestamp is out of the range of values supported by the platform C
localtime() function, and OSError on localtime() failure. It’s common for this to be restricted to years
from 1970 through 2038. Note that on non-POSIX systems that include leap seconds in their notion of a
timestamp, leap seconds are ignored by fromtimestamp() .

Changed in version 3.3: Raise OverflowError instead of ValueError if the timestamp is out of the range
of values supported by the platform C localtime() function. Raise OSError instead of ValueError on
localtime() failure.

classmethod date.fromordinal(ordinal)
Return the date corresponding to the proleptic Gregorian ordinal, where January 1 of year 1 has ordinal 1.

ValueError is raised unless 1 <= ordinal <= date.max.toordinal() . For any date d,
date.fromordinal(d.toordinal()) == d .

classmethod date.fromisoformat(date_string)
Return a date corresponding to a date_string given in any valid ISO 8601 format, except ordinal dates
(e.g. YYYY-DDD ):
 >>> from datetime import date >>>
>>> date.fromisoformat('2019-12-04')
datetime.date(2019, 12, 4)
>>> date.fromisoformat('20191204')
datetime.date(2019, 12, 4)
>>> date.fromisoformat('2021-W01-1')
datetime.date(2021, 1, 4)

New in version 3.7.

Changed in version 3.11: Previously, this method only supported the format YYYY-MM-DD .

classmethod date.fromisocalendar(year, week, day)

Return a date corresponding to the ISO calendar date specified by year, week and day. This is the
inverse of the function date.isocalendar() .

New in version 3.8.

Class attributes:

date.min
The earliest representable date, date(MINYEAR, 1, 1) .

date.max
The latest representable date, date(MAXYEAR, 12, 31) .

date.resolution
The smallest possible difference between non-equal date objects, timedelta(days=1) .

Instance attributes (read-only):

date.year
Between MINYEAR and MAXYEAR inclusive.

date.month
Between 1 and 12 inclusive.

date.day
Between 1 and the number of days in the given month of the given year.

Supported operations:

Operation Result

date2 = date1 + timedelta date2 will be timedelta.days days after date1. (1)

date2 = date1 - timedelta Computes date2 such that date2 + timedelta == date1 . (2)

timedelta = date1 - date2 (3)

date1 is considered less than date2 when date1 precedes

date1 < date2
date2 in time. (4)

Notes:

1. date2 is moved forward in time if timedelta.days > 0 , or backward if timedelta.days < 0 . Afterward
date2 - date1 == timedelta.days . timedelta.seconds and timedelta.microseconds are ignored.
 OverflowError is raised if date2.year would be smaller than MINYEAR or larger than MAXYEAR .
2. timedelta.seconds and timedelta.microseconds are ignored.
3. This is exact, and cannot overflow. timedelta.seconds and timedelta.microseconds are 0, and date2 +
timedelta == date1 after.
4. In other words, date1 < date2 if and only if date1.toordinal() < date2.toordinal() . Date
comparison raises TypeError if the other comparand isn’t also a date object. However,
NotImplemented is returned instead if the other comparand has a timetuple() attribute. This hook
gives other kinds of date objects a chance at implementing mixed-type comparison. If not, when a date
object is compared to an object of a different type, TypeError is raised unless the comparison is == or
!= . The latter cases return False or True , respectively.

In Boolean contexts, all date objects are considered to be true.

Instance methods:

date.replace(year=self.year, month=self.month, day=self.day)

Return a date with the same value, except for those parameters given new values by whichever keyword
arguments are specified.

Example:

>>> from datetime import date >>>

>>> d = date(2002, 12, 31)
>>> d.replace(day=26)
datetime.date(2002, 12, 26)

date.timetuple()
Return a time.struct_time such as returned by time.localtime() .

The hours, minutes and seconds are 0, and the DST flag is -1.

d.timetuple() is equivalent to:

time.struct_time((d.year, d.month, d.day, 0, 0, 0, d.weekday(), yday, -1))

where yday = d.toordinal() - date(d.year, 1, 1).toordinal() + 1 is the day number within the
current year starting with 1 for January 1st.

date.toordinal()
Return the proleptic Gregorian ordinal of the date, where January 1 of year 1 has ordinal 1. For any date
object d, date.fromordinal(d.toordinal()) == d .

date.weekday()
Return the day of the week as an integer, where Monday is 0 and Sunday is 6. For example, date(2002,
12, 4).weekday() == 2 , a Wednesday. See also isoweekday() .

date.isoweekday()
Return the day of the week as an integer, where Monday is 1 and Sunday is 7. For example, date(2002,
12, 4).isoweekday() == 3 , a Wednesday. See also weekday() , isocalendar() .

date.isocalendar()
Return a named tuple object with three components: year , week and weekday .

The ISO calendar is a widely used variant of the Gregorian calendar. [3]
 The ISO year consists of 52 or 53 full weeks, and where a week starts on a Monday and ends on a
Sunday. The first week of an ISO year is the first (Gregorian) calendar week of a year containing a
Thursday. This is called week number 1, and the ISO year of that Thursday is the same as its Gregorian
year.

For example, 2004 begins on a Thursday, so the first week of ISO year 2004 begins on Monday, 29 Dec
2003 and ends on Sunday, 4 Jan 2004:

>>> from datetime import date >>>

>>> date(2003, 12, 29).isocalendar()
datetime.IsoCalendarDate(year=2004, week=1, weekday=1)
>>> date(2004, 1, 4).isocalendar()
datetime.IsoCalendarDate(year=2004, week=1, weekday=7)

Changed in version 3.9: Result changed from a tuple to a named tuple.

date.isoformat()
Return a string representing the date in ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DD :

>>> from datetime import date >>>

>>> date(2002, 12, 4).isoformat()
'2002-12-04'

date.__str__()
For a date d, str(d) is equivalent to d.isoformat() .

date.ctime()
Return a string representing the date:

>>> from datetime import date >>>

>>> date(2002, 12, 4).ctime()
'Wed Dec 4 00:00:00 2002'

d.ctime() is equivalent to:

time.ctime(time.mktime(d.timetuple()))

on platforms where the native C ctime() function (which time.ctime() invokes, but which
date.ctime() does not invoke) conforms to the C standard.

date.strftime(format)
Return a string representing the date, controlled by an explicit format string. Format codes referring to
hours, minutes or seconds will see 0 values. See also strftime() and strptime() Behavior and
date.isoformat() .

date.__format__(format)
Same as date.strftime() . This makes it possible to specify a format string for a date object in
formatted string literals and when using str.format() . See also strftime() and strptime() Behavior and
date.isoformat() .

Examples of Usage: date

Example of counting days to an event:

>>> import time >>>

>>> from datetime import date
>>> today = date.today()
>>> today
datetime.date(2007, 12, 5)
>>> today == date.fromtimestamp(time.time())
True
>>> my_birthday = date(today.year, 6, 24)
>>> if my_birthday < today:
... my_birthday = my_birthday.replace(year=today.year + 1)
>>> my_birthday
datetime.date(2008, 6, 24)
>>> time_to_birthday = abs(my_birthday - today)
>>> time_to_birthday.days
202

More examples of working with date :

>>> from datetime import date >>>

>>> d = date.fromordinal(730920) # 730920th day after 1. 1. 0001
>>> d
datetime.date(2002, 3, 11)

>>> # Methods related to formatting string output

>>> d.isoformat()
'2002-03-11'
>>> d.strftime("%d/%m/%y")
'11/03/02'
>>> d.strftime("%A %d. %B %Y")
'Monday 11. March 2002'
>>> d.ctime()
'Mon Mar 11 00:00:00 2002'
>>> 'The {1} is {0:%d}, the {2} is {0:%B}.'.format(d, "day", "month")
'The day is 11, the month is March.'

>>> # Methods for to extracting 'components' under different calendars

>>> t = d.timetuple()
>>> for i in t:
... print(i)
2002 # year
3 # month
11 # day
0
0
0
0 # weekday (0 = Monday)
70 # 70th day in the year
-1
>>> ic = d.isocalendar()
>>> for i in ic:
... print(i)
2002 # ISO year
11 # ISO week number
1 # ISO day number ( 1 = Monday )

>>> # A date object is immutable; all operations produce a new object

>>> d.replace(year=2005)
datetime.date(2005, 3, 11)

datetime Objects

A datetime object is a single object containing all the information from a date object and a time object.
Like a date object, datetime assumes the current Gregorian calendar extended in both directions; like a
time object, datetime assumes there are exactly 3600*24 seconds in every day.

Constructor:

class datetime.datetime(year, month, day, hour=0, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0,

tzinfo=None, *, fold=0)
The year, month and day arguments are required. tzinfo may be None , or an instance of a tzinfo
subclass. The remaining arguments must be integers in the following ranges:

MINYEAR <= year <= MAXYEAR ,

1 <= month <= 12 ,
1 <= day <= number of days in the given month and year ,
0 <= hour < 24 ,
0 <= minute < 60 ,
0 <= second < 60 ,
0 <= microsecond < 1000000 ,
fold in [0, 1] .

If an argument outside those ranges is given, ValueError is raised.

New in version 3.6: Added the fold argument.

Other constructors, all class methods:

classmethod datetime.today()
Return the current local datetime, with tzinfo None .

Equivalent to:

datetime.fromtimestamp(time.time())

See also now() , fromtimestamp() .

This method is functionally equivalent to now() , but without a tz parameter.

classmethod datetime.now(tz=None)
Return the current local date and time.

If optional argument tz is None or not specified, this is like today() , but, if possible, supplies more
precision than can be gotten from going through a time.time() timestamp (for example, this may be
possible on platforms supplying the C gettimeofday() function).

If tz is not None , it must be an instance of a tzinfo subclass, and the current date and time are
converted to tz’s time zone.

This function is preferred over today() and utcnow() .

classmethod datetime.utcnow()
Return the current UTC date and time, with tzinfo None .

This is like now() , but returns the current UTC date and time, as a naive datetime object. An aware
current UTC datetime can be obtained by calling datetime.now(timezone.utc) . See also now() .

Warning: Because naive datetime objects are treated by many datetime methods as local times, it
is preferred to use aware datetimes to represent times in UTC. As such, the recommended way to
 create an object representing the current time in UTC is by calling datetime.now(timezone.utc) .

classmethod datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, tz=None)

Return the local date and time corresponding to the POSIX timestamp, such as is returned by
time.time() . If optional argument tz is None or not specified, the timestamp is converted to the
platform’s local date and time, and the returned datetime object is naive.

If tz is not None , it must be an instance of a tzinfo subclass, and the timestamp is converted to tz’s time
zone.

fromtimestamp() may raise OverflowError , if the timestamp is out of the range of values supported by
the platform C localtime() or gmtime() functions, and OSError on localtime() or gmtime() failure.
It’s common for this to be restricted to years in 1970 through 2038. Note that on non-POSIX systems that
include leap seconds in their notion of a timestamp, leap seconds are ignored by fromtimestamp() , and
then it’s possible to have two timestamps differing by a second that yield identical datetime objects. This
method is preferred over utcfromtimestamp() .

Changed in version 3.3: Raise OverflowError instead of ValueError if the timestamp is out of the range
of values supported by the platform C localtime() or gmtime() functions. Raise OSError instead of
ValueError on localtime() or gmtime() failure.

Changed in version 3.6: fromtimestamp() may return instances with fold set to 1.

classmethod datetime.utcfromtimestamp(timestamp)
Return the UTC datetime corresponding to the POSIX timestamp, with tzinfo None . (The resulting
object is naive.)

This may raise OverflowError , if the timestamp is out of the range of values supported by the platform C
gmtime() function, and OSError on gmtime() failure. It’s common for this to be restricted to years in
1970 through 2038.

To get an aware datetime object, call fromtimestamp() :

datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, timezone.utc)

On the POSIX compliant platforms, it is equivalent to the following expression:

datetime(1970, 1, 1, tzinfo=timezone.utc) + timedelta(seconds=timestamp)

except the latter formula always supports the full years range: between MINYEAR and MAXYEAR inclusive.

Warning: Because naive datetime objects are treated by many datetime methods as local times, it
is preferred to use aware datetimes to represent times in UTC. As such, the recommended way to
create an object representing a specific timestamp in UTC is by calling
datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, tz=timezone.utc) .

Changed in version 3.3: Raise OverflowError instead of ValueError if the timestamp is out of the range
of values supported by the platform C gmtime() function. Raise OSError instead of ValueError on
gmtime() failure.

classmethod datetime.fromordinal(ordinal)
Return the datetime corresponding to the proleptic Gregorian ordinal, where January 1 of year 1 has
ordinal 1. ValueError is raised unless 1 <= ordinal <= datetime.max.toordinal() . The hour,
minute, second and microsecond of the result are all 0, and tzinfo is None .
classmethod datetime.combine(date, time, tzinfo=self.tzinfo)
Return a new datetime object whose date components are equal to the given date object’s, and whose
time components are equal to the given time object’s. If the tzinfo argument is provided, its value is used
to set the tzinfo attribute of the result, otherwise the tzinfo attribute of the time argument is used.

For any datetime object d, d == datetime.combine(d.date(), d.time(), d.tzinfo) . If date is a

datetime object, its time components and tzinfo attributes are ignored.

Changed in version 3.6: Added the tzinfo argument.

classmethod datetime.fromisoformat(date_string)
Return a datetime corresponding to a date_string in any valid ISO 8601 format, with the following
exceptions:

1. Time zone offsets may have fractional seconds.

2. The T separator may be replaced by any single unicode character.
3. Ordinal dates are not currently supported.
4. Fractional hours and minutes are not supported.

Examples:

>>> from datetime import datetime >>>

>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2011-11-04')
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 4, 0, 0)
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('20111104')
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 4, 0, 0)
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2011-11-04T00:05:23')
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 4, 0, 5, 23)
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2011-11-04T00:05:23Z')
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 4, 0, 5, 23, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('20111104T000523')
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 4, 0, 5, 23)
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2011-W01-2T00:05:23.283')
datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 4, 0, 5, 23, 283000)
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2011-11-04 00:05:23.283')
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 4, 0, 5, 23, 283000)
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2011-11-04 00:05:23.283+00:00')
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 4, 0, 5, 23, 283000, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2011-11-04T00:05:23+04:00')
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 4, 0, 5, 23,
tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(seconds=14400)))

New in version 3.7.

Changed in version 3.11: Previously, this method only supported formats that could be emitted by
date.isoformat() or datetime.isoformat() .

classmethod datetime.fromisocalendar(year, week, day)

Return a datetime corresponding to the ISO calendar date specified by year, week and day. The non-
date components of the datetime are populated with their normal default values. This is the inverse of the
function datetime.isocalendar() .

New in version 3.8.

classmethod datetime.strptime(date_string, format)

Return a datetime corresponding to date_string, parsed according to format.

This is equivalent to:

 datetime(*(time.strptime(date_string, format)[0:6]))

ValueError is raised if the date_string and format can’t be parsed by time.strptime() or if it returns a
value which isn’t a time tuple. See also strftime() and strptime() Behavior and
datetime.fromisoformat() .

Class attributes:

datetime.min
The earliest representable datetime , datetime(MINYEAR, 1, 1, tzinfo=None) .

datetime.max
The latest representable datetime , datetime(MAXYEAR, 12, 31, 23, 59, 59, 999999,
tzinfo=None) .

datetime.resolution
The smallest possible difference between non-equal datetime objects, timedelta(microseconds=1) .

Instance attributes (read-only):

datetime.year
Between MINYEAR and MAXYEAR inclusive.

datetime.month
Between 1 and 12 inclusive.

datetime.day
Between 1 and the number of days in the given month of the given year.

datetime.hour
In range(24) .

datetime.minute
In range(60) .

datetime.second
In range(60) .

datetime.microsecond
In range(1000000) .

datetime.tzinfo
The object passed as the tzinfo argument to the datetime constructor, or None if none was passed.

datetime.fold
In [0, 1] . Used to disambiguate wall times during a repeated interval. (A repeated interval occurs when
clocks are rolled back at the end of daylight saving time or when the UTC offset for the current zone is
decreased for political reasons.) The value 0 (1) represents the earlier (later) of the two moments with the
same wall time representation.

New in version 3.6.

Supported operations:
 Operation Result

datetime2 = datetime1 + timedelta (1)

datetime2 = datetime1 - timedelta (2)

timedelta = datetime1 - datetime2 (3)

datetime1 < datetime2 Compares datetime to datetime . (4)

1. datetime2 is a duration of timedelta removed from datetime1, moving forward in time if timedelta.days
> 0, or backward if timedelta.days < 0. The result has the same tzinfo attribute as the input
datetime, and datetime2 - datetime1 == timedelta after. OverflowError is raised if datetime2.year
would be smaller than MINYEAR or larger than MAXYEAR . Note that no time zone adjustments are done
even if the input is an aware object.

2. Computes the datetime2 such that datetime2 + timedelta == datetime1. As for addition, the result has
the same tzinfo attribute as the input datetime, and no time zone adjustments are done even if the
input is aware.

3. Subtraction of a datetime from a datetime is defined only if both operands are naive, or if both are
aware. If one is aware and the other is naive, TypeError is raised.

If both are naive, or both are aware and have the same tzinfo attribute, the tzinfo attributes are
ignored, and the result is a timedelta object t such that datetime2 + t == datetime1 . No time zone
adjustments are done in this case.

If both are aware and have different tzinfo attributes, a-b acts as if a and b were first converted to
naive UTC datetimes first. The result is (a.replace(tzinfo=None) - a.utcoffset()) -
(b.replace(tzinfo=None) - b.utcoffset()) except that the implementation never overflows.

4. datetime1 is considered less than datetime2 when datetime1 precedes datetime2 in time.

If one comparand is naive and the other is aware, TypeError is raised if an order comparison is
attempted. For equality comparisons, naive instances are never equal to aware instances.

If both comparands are aware, and have the same tzinfo attribute, the common tzinfo attribute is
ignored and the base datetimes are compared. If both comparands are aware and have different
tzinfo attributes, the comparands are first adjusted by subtracting their UTC offsets (obtained from
self.utcoffset() ).

Changed in version 3.3: Equality comparisons between aware and naive datetime instances don’t
raise TypeError .

Note: In order to stop comparison from falling back to the default scheme of comparing object
addresses, datetime comparison normally raises TypeError if the other comparand isn’t also a
datetime object. However, NotImplemented is returned instead if the other comparand has a
timetuple() attribute. This hook gives other kinds of date objects a chance at implementing mixed-
type comparison. If not, when a datetime object is compared to an object of a different type,
TypeError is raised unless the comparison is == or != . The latter cases return False or True ,
respectively.

Instance methods:

datetime.date()
 Return date object with same year, month and day.

datetime.time()
Return time object with same hour, minute, second, microsecond and fold. tzinfo is None . See also
method timetz() .

Changed in version 3.6: The fold value is copied to the returned time object.

datetime.timetz()
Return time object with same hour, minute, second, microsecond, fold, and tzinfo attributes. See also
method time() .

Changed in version 3.6: The fold value is copied to the returned time object.

datetime.replace(year=self.year, month=self.month, day=self.day, hour=self.hour,

minute=self.minute, second=self.second, microsecond=self.microsecond,
tzinfo=self.tzinfo, *, fold=0)
Return a datetime with the same attributes, except for those attributes given new values by whichever
keyword arguments are specified. Note that tzinfo=None can be specified to create a naive datetime
from an aware datetime with no conversion of date and time data.

New in version 3.6: Added the fold argument.

datetime.astimezone(tz=None)
Return a datetime object with new tzinfo attribute tz, adjusting the date and time data so the result is
the same UTC time as self, but in tz’s local time.

If provided, tz must be an instance of a tzinfo subclass, and its utcoffset() and dst() methods must
not return None . If self is naive, it is presumed to represent time in the system timezone.

If called without arguments (or with tz=None ) the system local timezone is assumed for the target
timezone. The .tzinfo attribute of the converted datetime instance will be set to an instance of
timezone with the zone name and offset obtained from the OS.

If self.tzinfo is tz, self.astimezone(tz) is equal to self: no adjustment of date or time data is

performed. Else the result is local time in the timezone tz, representing the same UTC time as self: after
astz = dt.astimezone(tz) , astz - astz.utcoffset() will have the same date and time data as dt -
dt.utcoffset() .

If you merely want to attach a time zone object tz to a datetime dt without adjustment of date and time
data, use dt.replace(tzinfo=tz) . If you merely want to remove the time zone object from an aware
datetime dt without conversion of date and time data, use dt.replace(tzinfo=None) .

Note that the default tzinfo.fromutc() method can be overridden in a tzinfo subclass to affect the
result returned by astimezone() . Ignoring error cases, astimezone() acts like:

def astimezone(self, tz):

if self.tzinfo is tz:
return self
# Convert self to UTC, and attach the new time zone object.
utc = (self - self.utcoffset()).replace(tzinfo=tz)
# Convert from UTC to tz's local time.
return tz.fromutc(utc)

Changed in version 3.3: tz now can be omitted.

 Changed in version 3.6: The astimezone() method can now be called on naive instances that are
presumed to represent system local time.

datetime.utcoffset()
If tzinfo is None , returns None , else returns self.tzinfo.utcoffset(self) , and raises an exception if
the latter doesn’t return None or a timedelta object with magnitude less than one day.

Changed in version 3.7: The UTC offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

datetime.dst()
If tzinfo is None , returns None , else returns self.tzinfo.dst(self) , and raises an exception if the
latter doesn’t return None or a timedelta object with magnitude less than one day.

Changed in version 3.7: The DST offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

datetime.tzname()
If tzinfo is None , returns None , else returns self.tzinfo.tzname(self) , raises an exception if the
latter doesn’t return None or a string object,

datetime.timetuple()
Return a time.struct_time such as returned by time.localtime() .

d.timetuple() is equivalent to:

time.struct_time((d.year, d.month, d.day,

d.hour, d.minute, d.second,
d.weekday(), yday, dst))

where yday = d.toordinal() - date(d.year, 1, 1).toordinal() + 1 is the day number within the
current year starting with 1 for January 1st. The tm_isdst flag of the result is set according to the dst()
method: tzinfo is None or dst() returns None , tm_isdst is set to -1 ; else if dst() returns a non-zero
value, tm_isdst is set to 1 ; else tm_isdst is set to 0 .

datetime.utctimetuple()
If datetime instance d is naive, this is the same as d.timetuple() except that tm_isdst is forced to 0
regardless of what d.dst() returns. DST is never in effect for a UTC time.

If d is aware, d is normalized to UTC time, by subtracting d.utcoffset() , and a time.struct_time for

the normalized time is returned. tm_isdst is forced to 0. Note that an OverflowError may be raised if
d.year was MINYEAR or MAXYEAR and UTC adjustment spills over a year boundary.

Warning: Because naive datetime objects are treated by many datetime methods as local times, it
is preferred to use aware datetimes to represent times in UTC; as a result, using
datetime.utctimetuple() may give misleading results. If you have a naive datetime representing
UTC, use datetime.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc) to make it aware, at which point you can use
datetime.timetuple() .

datetime.toordinal()
Return the proleptic Gregorian ordinal of the date. The same as self.date().toordinal() .

datetime.timestamp()
Return POSIX timestamp corresponding to the datetime instance. The return value is a float similar to
that returned by time.time() .
 Naive datetime instances are assumed to represent local time and this method relies on the platform C
mktime() function to perform the conversion. Since datetime supports wider range of values than
mktime() on many platforms, this method may raise OverflowError for times far in the past or far in the
future.

For aware datetime instances, the return value is computed as:

(dt - datetime(1970, 1, 1, tzinfo=timezone.utc)).total_seconds()

New in version 3.3.

Changed in version 3.6: The timestamp() method uses the fold attribute to disambiguate the times
during a repeated interval.

Note: There is no method to obtain the POSIX timestamp directly from a naive datetime instance
representing UTC time. If your application uses this convention and your system timezone is not set to
UTC, you can obtain the POSIX timestamp by supplying tzinfo=timezone.utc :

timestamp = dt.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc).timestamp()

or by calculating the timestamp directly:

timestamp = (dt - datetime(1970, 1, 1)) / timedelta(seconds=1)

datetime.weekday()
Return the day of the week as an integer, where Monday is 0 and Sunday is 6. The same as
self.date().weekday() . See also isoweekday() .

datetime.isoweekday()
Return the day of the week as an integer, where Monday is 1 and Sunday is 7. The same as
self.date().isoweekday() . See also weekday() , isocalendar() .

datetime.isocalendar()
Return a named tuple with three components: year , week and weekday . The same as
self.date().isocalendar() .

datetime.isoformat(sep='T', timespec='auto')
Return a string representing the date and time in ISO 8601 format:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.ffffff , if microsecond is not 0

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS , if microsecond is 0

If utcoffset() does not return None , a string is appended, giving the UTC offset:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.ffffff+HH:MM[:SS[.ffffff]] , if microsecond is not 0

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+HH:MM[:SS[.ffffff]] , if microsecond is 0

Examples:

>>> from datetime import datetime, timezone >>>

>>> datetime(2019, 5, 18, 15, 17, 8, 132263).isoformat()
'2019-05-18T15:17:08.132263'
>>> datetime(2019, 5, 18, 15, 17, tzinfo=timezone.utc).isoformat()
'2019-05-18T15:17:00+00:00'
 The optional argument sep (default 'T' ) is a one-character separator, placed between the date and time
portions of the result. For example:

>>> from datetime import tzinfo, timedelta, datetime >>>

>>> class TZ(tzinfo):
... """A time zone with an arbitrary, constant -06:39 offset."""
... def utcoffset(self, dt):
... return timedelta(hours=-6, minutes=-39)
...
>>> datetime(2002, 12, 25, tzinfo=TZ()).isoformat(' ')
'2002-12-25 00:00:00-06:39'
>>> datetime(2009, 11, 27, microsecond=100, tzinfo=TZ()).isoformat()
'2009-11-27T00:00:00.000100-06:39'

The optional argument timespec specifies the number of additional components of the time to include (the
default is 'auto' ). It can be one of the following:

'auto' : Same as 'seconds' if microsecond is 0, same as 'microseconds' otherwise.

'hours' : Include the hour in the two-digit HH format.
'minutes' : Include hour and minute in HH:MM format.
'seconds' : Include hour , minute , and second in HH:MM:SS format.
'milliseconds' : Include full time, but truncate fractional second part to milliseconds. HH:MM:SS.sss
format.
'microseconds' : Include full time in HH:MM:SS.ffffff format.

Note: Excluded time components are truncated, not rounded.

ValueError will be raised on an invalid timespec argument:

>>> from datetime import datetime >>>

>>> datetime.now().isoformat(timespec='minutes')
'2002-12-25T00:00'
>>> dt = datetime(2015, 1, 1, 12, 30, 59, 0)
>>> dt.isoformat(timespec='microseconds')
'2015-01-01T12:30:59.000000'

New in version 3.6: Added the timespec argument.

datetime.__str__()
For a datetime instance d, str(d) is equivalent to d.isoformat(' ') .

datetime.ctime()
Return a string representing the date and time:

>>> from datetime import datetime >>>

>>> datetime(2002, 12, 4, 20, 30, 40).ctime()
'Wed Dec 4 20:30:40 2002'

The output string will not include time zone information, regardless of whether the input is aware or naive.

d.ctime() is equivalent to:

time.ctime(time.mktime(d.timetuple()))

on platforms where the native C ctime() function (which time.ctime() invokes, but which
datetime.ctime() does not invoke) conforms to the C standard.
datetime.strftime(format)
Return a string representing the date and time, controlled by an explicit format string. See also strftime()
and strptime() Behavior and datetime.isoformat() .

datetime.__format__(format)
Same as datetime.strftime() . This makes it possible to specify a format string for a datetime object
in formatted string literals and when using str.format() . See also strftime() and strptime() Behavior and
datetime.isoformat() .

Examples of Usage: datetime

Examples of working with datetime objects:

>>> from datetime import datetime, date, time, timezone >>>

>>> # Using datetime.combine()

>>> d = date(2005, 7, 14)
>>> t = time(12, 30)
>>> datetime.combine(d, t)
datetime.datetime(2005, 7, 14, 12, 30)

>>> # Using datetime.now()

>>> datetime.now()
datetime.datetime(2007, 12, 6, 16, 29, 43, 79043) # GMT +1
>>> datetime.now(timezone.utc)
datetime.datetime(2007, 12, 6, 15, 29, 43, 79060, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)

>>> # Using datetime.strptime()

>>> dt = datetime.strptime("21/11/06 16:30", "%d/%m/%y %H:%M")
>>> dt
datetime.datetime(2006, 11, 21, 16, 30)

>>> # Using datetime.timetuple() to get tuple of all attributes

>>> tt = dt.timetuple()
>>> for it in tt:
... print(it)
...
2006 # year
11 # month
21 # day
16 # hour
30 # minute
0 # second
1 # weekday (0 = Monday)
325 # number of days since 1st January
-1 # dst - method tzinfo.dst() returned None

>>> # Date in ISO format

>>> ic = dt.isocalendar()
>>> for it in ic:
... print(it)
...
2006 # ISO year
47 # ISO week
2 # ISO weekday

>>> # Formatting a datetime

>>> dt.strftime("%A, %d. %B %Y %I:%M%p")
'Tuesday, 21. November 2006 04:30PM'
>>> 'The {1} is {0:%d}, the {2} is {0:%B}, the {3} is {0:%I:%M%p}.'.format(dt, "day", "month
'The day is 21, the month is November, the time is 04:30PM.'

The example below defines a tzinfo subclass capturing time zone information for Kabul, Afghanistan, which
used +4 UTC until 1945 and then +4:30 UTC thereafter:

from datetime import timedelta, datetime, tzinfo, timezone

class KabulTz(tzinfo):
# Kabul used +4 until 1945, when they moved to +4:30
UTC_MOVE_DATE = datetime(1944, 12, 31, 20, tzinfo=timezone.utc)

def utcoffset(self, dt):

if dt.year < 1945:
return timedelta(hours=4)
elif (1945, 1, 1, 0, 0) <= dt.timetuple()[:5] < (1945, 1, 1, 0, 30):
# An ambiguous ("imaginary") half-hour range representing
# a 'fold' in time due to the shift from +4 to +4:30.
# If dt falls in the imaginary range, use fold to decide how
# to resolve. See PEP495.
return timedelta(hours=4, minutes=(30 if dt.fold else 0))
else:
return timedelta(hours=4, minutes=30)

def fromutc(self, dt):

# Follow same validations as in datetime.tzinfo
if not isinstance(dt, datetime):
raise TypeError("fromutc() requires a datetime argument")
if dt.tzinfo is not self:
raise ValueError("dt.tzinfo is not self")

# A custom implementation is required for fromutc as

# the input to this function is a datetime with utc values
# but with a tzinfo set to self.
# See datetime.astimezone or fromtimestamp.
if dt.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc) >= self.UTC_MOVE_DATE:
return dt + timedelta(hours=4, minutes=30)
else:
return dt + timedelta(hours=4)

def dst(self, dt):

# Kabul does not observe daylight saving time.
return timedelta(0)

def tzname(self, dt):

if dt >= self.UTC_MOVE_DATE:
return "+04:30"
return "+04"

Usage of KabulTz from above:

>>> tz1 = KabulTz() >>>

>>> # Datetime before the change

>>> dt1 = datetime(1900, 11, 21, 16, 30, tzinfo=tz1)
>>> print(dt1.utcoffset())
4:00:00

>>> # Datetime after the change

>>> dt2 = datetime(2006, 6, 14, 13, 0, tzinfo=tz1)
>>> print(dt2.utcoffset())
4:30:00
 >>> # Convert datetime to another time zone
>>> dt3 = dt2.astimezone(timezone.utc)
>>> dt3
datetime.datetime(2006, 6, 14, 8, 30, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>> dt2
datetime.datetime(2006, 6, 14, 13, 0, tzinfo=KabulTz())
>>> dt2 == dt3
True

time Objects

A time object represents a (local) time of day, independent of any particular day, and subject to adjustment via
a tzinfo object.

class datetime.time(hour=0, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0, tzinfo=None, *, fold=0)

All arguments are optional. tzinfo may be None , or an instance of a tzinfo subclass. The remaining
arguments must be integers in the following ranges:

0 <= hour < 24 ,

0 <= minute < 60 ,
0 <= second < 60 ,
0 <= microsecond < 1000000 ,
fold in [0, 1] .

If an argument outside those ranges is given, ValueError is raised. All default to 0 except tzinfo, which
defaults to None .

Class attributes:

time.min
The earliest representable time , time(0, 0, 0, 0) .

time.max
The latest representable time , time(23, 59, 59, 999999) .

time.resolution
The smallest possible difference between non-equal time objects, timedelta(microseconds=1) ,
although note that arithmetic on time objects is not supported.

Instance attributes (read-only):

time.hour
In range(24) .

time.minute
In range(60) .

time.second
In range(60) .

time.microsecond
In range(1000000) .

time.tzinfo
The object passed as the tzinfo argument to the time constructor, or None if none was passed.
time.fold
In [0, 1] . Used to disambiguate wall times during a repeated interval. (A repeated interval occurs when
clocks are rolled back at the end of daylight saving time or when the UTC offset for the current zone is
decreased for political reasons.) The value 0 (1) represents the earlier (later) of the two moments with the
same wall time representation.

New in version 3.6.

time objects support comparison of time to time , where a is considered less than b when a precedes b in
time. If one comparand is naive and the other is aware, TypeError is raised if an order comparison is
attempted. For equality comparisons, naive instances are never equal to aware instances.

If both comparands are aware, and have the same tzinfo attribute, the common tzinfo attribute is ignored
and the base times are compared. If both comparands are aware and have different tzinfo attributes, the
comparands are first adjusted by subtracting their UTC offsets (obtained from self.utcoffset() ). In order to
stop mixed-type comparisons from falling back to the default comparison by object address, when a time
object is compared to an object of a different type, TypeError is raised unless the comparison is == or != .
The latter cases return False or True , respectively.

Changed in version 3.3: Equality comparisons between aware and naive time instances don’t raise
TypeError .

In Boolean contexts, a time object is always considered to be true.

Changed in version 3.5: Before Python 3.5, a time object was considered to be false if it represented midnight
in UTC. This behavior was considered obscure and error-prone and has been removed in Python 3.5. See
bpo-13936 for full details.

Other constructor:

classmethod time.fromisoformat(time_string)
Return a time corresponding to a time_string in any valid ISO 8601 format, with the following exceptions:

1. Time zone offsets may have fractional seconds.

2. The leading T , normally required in cases where there may be ambiguity between a date and a
time, is not required.
3. Fractional seconds may have any number of digits (anything beyond 6 will be truncated).
4. Fractional hours and minutes are not supported.

Examples:

>>> from datetime import time >>>

>>> time.fromisoformat('04:23:01')
datetime.time(4, 23, 1)
>>> time.fromisoformat('T04:23:01')
datetime.time(4, 23, 1)
>>> time.fromisoformat('T042301')
datetime.time(4, 23, 1)
>>> time.fromisoformat('04:23:01.000384')
datetime.time(4, 23, 1, 384)
>>> time.fromisoformat('04:23:01,000')
datetime.time(4, 23, 1, 384)
>>> time.fromisoformat('04:23:01+04:00')
datetime.time(4, 23, 1, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(seconds=14400)))
>>> time.fromisoformat('04:23:01Z')
datetime.time(4, 23, 1, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>> time.fromisoformat('04:23:01+00:00')
datetime.time(4, 23, 1, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
 New in version 3.7.

Changed in version 3.11: Previously, this method only supported formats that could be emitted by
time.isoformat() .

Instance methods:

time.replace(hour=self.hour, minute=self.minute, second=self.second,

microsecond=self.microsecond, tzinfo=self.tzinfo, *, fold=0)
Return a time with the same value, except for those attributes given new values by whichever keyword
arguments are specified. Note that tzinfo=None can be specified to create a naive time from an aware
time , without conversion of the time data.

New in version 3.6: Added the fold argument.

time.isoformat(timespec='auto')
Return a string representing the time in ISO 8601 format, one of:

HH:MM:SS.ffffff , if microsecond is not 0

HH:MM:SS , if microsecond is 0
HH:MM:SS.ffffff+HH:MM[:SS[.ffffff]] , if utcoffset() does not return None
HH:MM:SS+HH:MM[:SS[.ffffff]] , if microsecond is 0 and utcoffset() does not return None

The optional argument timespec specifies the number of additional components of the time to include (the
default is 'auto' ). It can be one of the following:

'auto' : Same as 'seconds' if microsecond is 0, same as 'microseconds' otherwise.

'hours' : Include the hour in the two-digit HH format.
'minutes' : Include hour and minute in HH:MM format.
'seconds' : Include hour , minute , and second in HH:MM:SS format.
'milliseconds' : Include full time, but truncate fractional second part to milliseconds. HH:MM:SS.sss
format.
'microseconds' : Include full time in HH:MM:SS.ffffff format.

Note: Excluded time components are truncated, not rounded.

ValueError will be raised on an invalid timespec argument.

Example:

>>> from datetime import time >>>

>>> time(hour=12, minute=34, second=56, microsecond=123456).isoformat(timespec='minutes
'12:34'
>>> dt = time(hour=12, minute=34, second=56, microsecond=0)
>>> dt.isoformat(timespec='microseconds')
'12:34:56.000000'
>>> dt.isoformat(timespec='auto')
'12:34:56'

New in version 3.6: Added the timespec argument.

time.__str__()
For a time t, str(t) is equivalent to t.isoformat() .

time.strftime(format)
 Return a string representing the time, controlled by an explicit format string. See also strftime() and
strptime() Behavior and time.isoformat() .

time.__format__(format)
Same as time.strftime() . This makes it possible to specify a format string for a time object in
formatted string literals and when using str.format() . See also strftime() and strptime() Behavior and
time.isoformat() .

time.utcoffset()
If tzinfo is None , returns None , else returns self.tzinfo.utcoffset(None) , and raises an exception if
the latter doesn’t return None or a timedelta object with magnitude less than one day.

Changed in version 3.7: The UTC offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

time.dst()
If tzinfo is None , returns None , else returns self.tzinfo.dst(None) , and raises an exception if the
latter doesn’t return None , or a timedelta object with magnitude less than one day.

Changed in version 3.7: The DST offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

time.tzname()
If tzinfo is None , returns None , else returns self.tzinfo.tzname(None) , or raises an exception if the
latter doesn’t return None or a string object.

Examples of Usage: time

Examples of working with a time object:

>>> from datetime import time, tzinfo, timedelta >>>

>>> class TZ1(tzinfo):
... def utcoffset(self, dt):
... return timedelta(hours=1)
... def dst(self, dt):
... return timedelta(0)
... def tzname(self,dt):
... return "+01:00"
... def __repr__(self):
... return f"{self.__class__.__name__}()"
...
>>> t = time(12, 10, 30, tzinfo=TZ1())
>>> t
datetime.time(12, 10, 30, tzinfo=TZ1())
>>> t.isoformat()
'12:10:30+01:00'
>>> t.dst()
datetime.timedelta(0)
>>> t.tzname()
'+01:00'
>>> t.strftime("%H:%M:%S %Z")
'12:10:30 +01:00'
>>> 'The {} is {:%H:%M}.'.format("time", t)
'The time is 12:10.'

tzinfo Objects

class datetime.tzinfo
This is an abstract base class, meaning that this class should not be instantiated directly. Define a
subclass of tzinfo to capture information about a particular time zone.
 An instance of (a concrete subclass of) tzinfo can be passed to the constructors for datetime and time
objects. The latter objects view their attributes as being in local time, and the tzinfo object supports
methods revealing offset of local time from UTC, the name of the time zone, and DST offset, all relative to
a date or time object passed to them.

You need to derive a concrete subclass, and (at least) supply implementations of the standard tzinfo
methods needed by the datetime methods you use. The datetime module provides timezone , a simple
concrete subclass of tzinfo which can represent timezones with fixed offset from UTC such as UTC
itself or North American EST and EDT.

Special requirement for pickling: A tzinfo subclass must have an __init__() method that can be called
with no arguments, otherwise it can be pickled but possibly not unpickled again. This is a technical
requirement that may be relaxed in the future.

A concrete subclass of tzinfo may need to implement the following methods. Exactly which methods are
needed depends on the uses made of aware datetime objects. If in doubt, simply implement all of them.

tzinfo.utcoffset(dt)
Return offset of local time from UTC, as a timedelta object that is positive east of UTC. If local time is
west of UTC, this should be negative.

This represents the total offset from UTC; for example, if a tzinfo object represents both time zone and
DST adjustments, utcoffset() should return their sum. If the UTC offset isn’t known, return None . Else
the value returned must be a timedelta object strictly between -timedelta(hours=24) and
timedelta(hours=24) (the magnitude of the offset must be less than one day). Most implementations of
utcoffset() will probably look like one of these two:

return CONSTANT # fixed-offset class

return CONSTANT + self.dst(dt) # daylight-aware class

If utcoffset() does not return None , dst() should not return None either.

The default implementation of utcoffset() raises NotImplementedError .

Changed in version 3.7: The UTC offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

tzinfo.dst(dt)
Return the daylight saving time (DST) adjustment, as a timedelta object or None if DST information isn’t
known.

Return timedelta(0) if DST is not in effect. If DST is in effect, return the offset as a timedelta object
(see utcoffset() for details). Note that DST offset, if applicable, has already been added to the UTC
offset returned by utcoffset() , so there’s no need to consult dst() unless you’re interested in obtaining
DST info separately. For example, datetime.timetuple() calls its tzinfo attribute’s dst() method to
determine how the tm_isdst flag should be set, and tzinfo.fromutc() calls dst() to account for DST
changes when crossing time zones.

An instance tz of a tzinfo subclass that models both standard and daylight times must be consistent in
this sense:

tz.utcoffset(dt) - tz.dst(dt)

must return the same result for every datetime dt with dt.tzinfo == tz For sane tzinfo subclasses,
this expression yields the time zone’s “standard offset”, which should not depend on the date or the time,
but only on geographic location. The implementation of datetime.astimezone() relies on this, but
cannot detect violations; it’s the programmer’s responsibility to ensure it. If a tzinfo subclass cannot
 guarantee this, it may be able to override the default implementation of tzinfo.fromutc() to work
correctly with astimezone() regardless.

Most implementations of dst() will probably look like one of these two:

def dst(self, dt):

# a fixed-offset class: doesn't account for DST
return timedelta(0)

or:

def dst(self, dt):

# Code to set dston and dstoff to the time zone's DST
# transition times based on the input dt.year, and expressed
# in standard local time.

if dston <= dt.replace(tzinfo=None) < dstoff:

return timedelta(hours=1)
else:
return timedelta(0)

The default implementation of dst() raises NotImplementedError .

Changed in version 3.7: The DST offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

tzinfo.tzname(dt)
Return the time zone name corresponding to the datetime object dt, as a string. Nothing about string
names is defined by the datetime module, and there’s no requirement that it mean anything in particular.
For example, “GMT”, “UTC”, “-500”, “-5:00”, “EDT”, “US/Eastern”, “America/New York” are all valid
replies. Return None if a string name isn’t known. Note that this is a method rather than a fixed string
primarily because some tzinfo subclasses will wish to return different names depending on the specific
value of dt passed, especially if the tzinfo class is accounting for daylight time.

The default implementation of tzname() raises NotImplementedError .

These methods are called by a datetime or time object, in response to their methods of the same names. A
datetime object passes itself as the argument, and a time object passes None as the argument. A tzinfo
subclass’s methods should therefore be prepared to accept a dt argument of None , or of class datetime .

When None is passed, it’s up to the class designer to decide the best response. For example, returning None
is appropriate if the class wishes to say that time objects don’t participate in the tzinfo protocols. It may be
more useful for utcoffset(None) to return the standard UTC offset, as there is no other convention for
discovering the standard offset.

When a datetime object is passed in response to a datetime method, dt.tzinfo is the same object as self.
tzinfo methods can rely on this, unless user code calls tzinfo methods directly. The intent is that the
tzinfo methods interpret dt as being in local time, and not need worry about objects in other timezones.

There is one more tzinfo method that a subclass may wish to override:

tzinfo.fromutc(dt)
This is called from the default datetime.astimezone() implementation. When called from that,
dt.tzinfo is self, and dt’s date and time data are to be viewed as expressing a UTC time. The purpose
of fromutc() is to adjust the date and time data, returning an equivalent datetime in self’s local time.

Most tzinfo subclasses should be able to inherit the default fromutc() implementation without
problems. It’s strong enough to handle fixed-offset time zones, and time zones accounting for both
 standard and daylight time, and the latter even if the DST transition times differ in different years. An
example of a time zone the default fromutc() implementation may not handle correctly in all cases is
one where the standard offset (from UTC) depends on the specific date and time passed, which can
happen for political reasons. The default implementations of astimezone() and fromutc() may not
produce the result you want if the result is one of the hours straddling the moment the standard offset
changes.

Skipping code for error cases, the default fromutc() implementation acts like:

def fromutc(self, dt):

# raise ValueError error if dt.tzinfo is not self
dtoff = dt.utcoffset()
dtdst = dt.dst()
# raise ValueError if dtoff is None or dtdst is None
delta = dtoff - dtdst # this is self's standard offset
if delta:
dt += delta # convert to standard local time
dtdst = dt.dst()
# raise ValueError if dtdst is None
if dtdst:
return dt + dtdst
else:
return dt

In the following tzinfo_examples.py file there are some examples of tzinfo classes:

from datetime import tzinfo, timedelta, datetime

ZERO = timedelta(0)
HOUR = timedelta(hours=1)
SECOND = timedelta(seconds=1)

# A class capturing the platform's idea of local time.

# (May result in wrong values on historical times in
# timezones where UTC offset and/or the DST rules had
# changed in the past.)
import time as _time

STDOFFSET = timedelta(seconds = -_time.timezone)

if _time.daylight:
DSTOFFSET = timedelta(seconds = -_time.altzone)
else:
DSTOFFSET = STDOFFSET

DSTDIFF = DSTOFFSET - STDOFFSET

class LocalTimezone(tzinfo):

def fromutc(self, dt):

assert dt.tzinfo is self
stamp = (dt - datetime(1970, 1, 1, tzinfo=self)) // SECOND
args = _time.localtime(stamp)[:6]
dst_diff = DSTDIFF // SECOND
# Detect fold
fold = (args == _time.localtime(stamp - dst_diff))
return datetime(*args, microsecond=dt.microsecond,
tzinfo=self, fold=fold)

def utcoffset(self, dt):

if self._isdst(dt):
return DSTOFFSET
else:
 return STDOFFSET

def dst(self, dt):

if self._isdst(dt):
return DSTDIFF
else:
return ZERO

def tzname(self, dt):

return _time.tzname[self._isdst(dt)]

def _isdst(self, dt):

tt = (dt.year, dt.month, dt.day,
dt.hour, dt.minute, dt.second,
dt.weekday(), 0, 0)
stamp = _time.mktime(tt)
tt = _time.localtime(stamp)
return tt.tm_isdst > 0

Local = LocalTimezone()

# A complete implementation of current DST rules for major US time zones.

def first_sunday_on_or_after(dt):
days_to_go = 6 - dt.weekday()
if days_to_go:
dt += timedelta(days_to_go)
return dt

# US DST Rules
#
# This is a simplified (i.e., wrong for a few cases) set of rules for US
# DST start and end times. For a complete and up-to-date set of DST rules
# and timezone definitions, visit the Olson Database (or try pytz):
# http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm
# https://sourceforge.net/projects/pytz/ (might not be up-to-date)
#
# In the US, since 2007, DST starts at 2am (standard time) on the second
# Sunday in March, which is the first Sunday on or after Mar 8.
DSTSTART_2007 = datetime(1, 3, 8, 2)
# and ends at 2am (DST time) on the first Sunday of Nov.
DSTEND_2007 = datetime(1, 11, 1, 2)
# From 1987 to 2006, DST used to start at 2am (standard time) on the first
# Sunday in April and to end at 2am (DST time) on the last
# Sunday of October, which is the first Sunday on or after Oct 25.
DSTSTART_1987_2006 = datetime(1, 4, 1, 2)
DSTEND_1987_2006 = datetime(1, 10, 25, 2)
# From 1967 to 1986, DST used to start at 2am (standard time) on the last
# Sunday in April (the one on or after April 24) and to end at 2am (DST time)
# on the last Sunday of October, which is the first Sunday
# on or after Oct 25.
DSTSTART_1967_1986 = datetime(1, 4, 24, 2)
DSTEND_1967_1986 = DSTEND_1987_2006

def us_dst_range(year):
# Find start and end times for US DST. For years before 1967, return
# start = end for no DST.
if 2006 < year:
dststart, dstend = DSTSTART_2007, DSTEND_2007
elif 1986 < year < 2007:
dststart, dstend = DSTSTART_1987_2006, DSTEND_1987_2006
elif 1966 < year < 1987:
 dststart, dstend = DSTSTART_1967_1986, DSTEND_1967_1986
else:
return (datetime(year, 1, 1), ) * 2

start = first_sunday_on_or_after(dststart.replace(year=year))
end = first_sunday_on_or_after(dstend.replace(year=year))
return start, end

class USTimeZone(tzinfo):

def __init__(self, hours, reprname, stdname, dstname):

self.stdoffset = timedelta(hours=hours)
self.reprname = reprname
self.stdname = stdname
self.dstname = dstname

def __repr__(self):
return self.reprname

def tzname(self, dt):

if self.dst(dt):
return self.dstname
else:
return self.stdname

def utcoffset(self, dt):

return self.stdoffset + self.dst(dt)

def dst(self, dt):

if dt is None or dt.tzinfo is None:
# An exception may be sensible here, in one or both cases.
# It depends on how you want to treat them. The default
# fromutc() implementation (called by the default astimezone()
# implementation) passes a datetime with dt.tzinfo is self.
return ZERO
assert dt.tzinfo is self
start, end = us_dst_range(dt.year)
# Can't compare naive to aware objects, so strip the timezone from
# dt first.
dt = dt.replace(tzinfo=None)
if start + HOUR <= dt < end - HOUR:
# DST is in effect.
return HOUR
if end - HOUR <= dt < end:
# Fold (an ambiguous hour): use dt.fold to disambiguate.
return ZERO if dt.fold else HOUR
if start <= dt < start + HOUR:
# Gap (a non-existent hour): reverse the fold rule.
return HOUR if dt.fold else ZERO
# DST is off.
return ZERO

def fromutc(self, dt):

assert dt.tzinfo is self
start, end = us_dst_range(dt.year)
start = start.replace(tzinfo=self)
end = end.replace(tzinfo=self)
std_time = dt + self.stdoffset
dst_time = std_time + HOUR
if end <= dst_time < end + HOUR:
# Repeated hour
return std_time.replace(fold=1)
if std_time < start or dst_time >= end:
 # Standard time
return std_time
if start <= std_time < end - HOUR:
# Daylight saving time
return dst_time

Eastern = USTimeZone(-5, "Eastern", "EST", "EDT")

Central = USTimeZone(-6, "Central", "CST", "CDT")
Mountain = USTimeZone(-7, "Mountain", "MST", "MDT")
Pacific = USTimeZone(-8, "Pacific", "PST", "PDT")

Note that there are unavoidable subtleties twice per year in a tzinfo subclass accounting for both standard
and daylight time, at the DST transition points. For concreteness, consider US Eastern (UTC -0500), where
EDT begins the minute after 1:59 (EST) on the second Sunday in March, and ends the minute after 1:59
(EDT) on the first Sunday in November:

UTC 3:MM 4:MM 5:MM 6:MM 7:MM 8:MM

EST 22:MM 23:MM 0:MM 1:MM 2:MM 3:MM
EDT 23:MM 0:MM 1:MM 2:MM 3:MM 4:MM

start 22:MM 23:MM 0:MM 1:MM 3:MM 4:MM

end 23:MM 0:MM 1:MM 1:MM 2:MM 3:MM

When DST starts (the “start” line), the local wall clock leaps from 1:59 to 3:00. A wall time of the form 2:MM
doesn’t really make sense on that day, so astimezone(Eastern) won’t deliver a result with hour == 2 on the
day DST begins. For example, at the Spring forward transition of 2016, we get:

>>> from datetime import datetime, timezone >>>

>>> from tzinfo_examples import HOUR, Eastern
>>> u0 = datetime(2016, 3, 13, 5, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
>>> for i in range(4):
... u = u0 + i*HOUR
... t = u.astimezone(Eastern)
... print(u.time(), 'UTC =', t.time(), t.tzname())
...
05:00:00 UTC = 00:00:00 EST
06:00:00 UTC = 01:00:00 EST
07:00:00 UTC = 03:00:00 EDT
08:00:00 UTC = 04:00:00 EDT

When DST ends (the “end” line), there’s a potentially worse problem: there’s an hour that can’t be spelled
unambiguously in local wall time: the last hour of daylight time. In Eastern, that’s times of the form 5:MM UTC
on the day daylight time ends. The local wall clock leaps from 1:59 (daylight time) back to 1:00 (standard time)
again. Local times of the form 1:MM are ambiguous. astimezone() mimics the local clock’s behavior by
mapping two adjacent UTC hours into the same local hour then. In the Eastern example, UTC times of the
form 5:MM and 6:MM both map to 1:MM when converted to Eastern, but earlier times have the fold attribute
set to 0 and the later times have it set to 1. For example, at the Fall back transition of 2016, we get:

>>> u0 = datetime(2016, 11, 6, 4, tzinfo=timezone.utc) >>>

>>> for i in range(4):
... u = u0 + i*HOUR
... t = u.astimezone(Eastern)
... print(u.time(), 'UTC =', t.time(), t.tzname(), t.fold)
...
04:00:00 UTC = 00:00:00 EDT 0
05:00:00 UTC = 01:00:00 EDT 0
06:00:00 UTC = 01:00:00 EST 1
07:00:00 UTC = 02:00:00 EST 0

Note that the datetime instances that differ only by the value of the fold attribute are considered equal in
comparisons.

Applications that can’t bear wall-time ambiguities should explicitly check the value of the fold attribute or
avoid using hybrid tzinfo subclasses; there are no ambiguities when using timezone , or any other fixed-
offset tzinfo subclass (such as a class representing only EST (fixed offset -5 hours), or only EDT (fixed offset
-4 hours)).

See also:

zoneinfo
The datetime module has a basic timezone class (for handling arbitrary fixed offsets from UTC)
and its timezone.utc attribute (a UTC timezone instance).

zoneinfo brings the IANA timezone database (also known as the Olson database) to Python, and
its usage is recommended.

IANA timezone database

The Time Zone Database (often called tz, tzdata or zoneinfo) contains code and data that represent the
history of local time for many representative locations around the globe. It is updated periodically to
reflect changes made by political bodies to time zone boundaries, UTC offsets, and daylight-saving
rules.

timezone Objects

The timezone class is a subclass of tzinfo , each instance of which represents a timezone defined by a fixed
offset from UTC.

Objects of this class cannot be used to represent timezone information in the locations where different offsets
are used in different days of the year or where historical changes have been made to civil time.

class datetime.timezone(offset, name=None)

The offset argument must be specified as a timedelta object representing the difference between the
local time and UTC. It must be strictly between -timedelta(hours=24) and timedelta(hours=24) ,
otherwise ValueError is raised.

The name argument is optional. If specified it must be a string that will be used as the value returned by
the datetime.tzname() method.

New in version 3.2.

Changed in version 3.7: The UTC offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

timezone.utcoffset(dt)
Return the fixed value specified when the timezone instance is constructed.

The dt argument is ignored. The return value is a timedelta instance equal to the difference between the
local time and UTC.

Changed in version 3.7: The UTC offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

timezone.tzname(dt)
Return the fixed value specified when the timezone instance is constructed.
 If name is not provided in the constructor, the name returned by tzname(dt) is generated from the value
of the offset as follows. If offset is timedelta(0) , the name is “UTC”, otherwise it is a string in the
format UTC±HH:MM , where ± is the sign of offset , HH and MM are two digits of offset.hours and
offset.minutes respectively.

Changed in version 3.6: Name generated from offset=timedelta(0) is now plain 'UTC' , not
'UTC+00:00' .

timezone.dst(dt)
Always returns None .

timezone.fromutc(dt)
Return dt + offset . The dt argument must be an aware datetime instance, with tzinfo set to self .

Class attributes:

timezone.utc
The UTC timezone, timezone(timedelta(0)) .

strftime() and strptime() Behavior

date , datetime , and time objects all support a strftime(format) method, to create a string representing
the time under the control of an explicit format string.

Conversely, the datetime.strptime() class method creates a datetime object from a string representing a
date and time and a corresponding format string.

The table below provides a high-level comparison of strftime() versus strptime() :

strftime strptime

Convert object to a string according to Parse a string into a datetime object given a
Usage
a given format corresponding format

Type of
Instance method Class method
method

Method
date ; datetime ; time datetime
of

Signature strftime(format) strptime(date_string, format)

strftime() and strptime() Format Codes

These methods accept format codes that can be used to parse and format dates:

>>> datetime.strptime('31/01/22 23:59:59.999999', >>>

... '%d/%m/%y %H:%M:%S.%f')
datetime.datetime(2022, 1, 31, 23, 59, 59, 999999)
>>> _.strftime('%a %d %b %Y, %I:%M%p')
'Mon 31 Jan 2022, 11:59PM'

The following is a list of all the format codes that the 1989 C standard requires, and these work on all platforms
with a standard C implementation.
Directive Meaning Example Notes

%a Weekday as locale’s abbreviated name. Sun, Mon, …, Sat (en_US); (1)

So, Mo, …, Sa (de_DE)
Sunday, Monday, …, Saturday
%A Weekday as locale’s full name. (en_US); (1)
Sonntag, Montag, …, Samstag
(de_DE)
Weekday as a decimal number, where 0 is
%w 0, 1, …, 6
Sunday and 6 is Saturday.
Day of the month as a zero-padded decimal
%d 01, 02, …, 31 (9)
number.

%b Month as locale’s abbreviated name. Jan, Feb, …, Dec (en_US); (1)

Jan, Feb, …, Dez (de_DE)
January, February, …, December
%B
(en_US);
Month as locale’s full name. (1)
Januar, Februar, …, Dezember
(de_DE)
%m Month as a zero-padded decimal number. 01, 02, …, 12 (9)

Year without century as a zero-padded

%y 00, 01, …, 99 (9)
decimal number.

0001, 0002, …, 2013, 2014, …,

%Y Year with century as a decimal number. (2)
9998, 9999

Hour (24-hour clock) as a zero-padded

%H 00, 01, …, 23 (9)
decimal number.

Hour (12-hour clock) as a zero-padded

%I 01, 02, …, 12 (9)
decimal number.

%p
AM, PM (en_US);
Locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM. (1), (3)
am, pm (de_DE)
%M Minute as a zero-padded decimal number. 00, 01, …, 59 (9)

%S Second as a zero-padded decimal number. 00, 01, …, 59 (4), (9)

Microsecond as a decimal number, zero-

%f 000000, 000001, …, 999999 (5)
padded to 6 digits.

UTC offset in the form ±HHMM[SS[.ffffff]] (empty), +0000, -0400, +1030,

%z (6)
(empty string if the object is naive). +063415, -030712.345216

Time zone name (empty string if the object is

%Z (empty), UTC, GMT (6)
naive).

Day of the year as a zero-padded decimal

%j 001, 002, …, 366 (9)
number.

Week number of the year (Sunday as the first

day of the week) as a zero-padded decimal
%U 00, 01, …, 53 (7), (9)
number. All days in a new year preceding the
first Sunday are considered to be in week 0.

%W Week number of the year (Monday as the 00, 01, …, 53 (7), (9)
first day of the week) as a zero-padded
decimal number. All days in a new year
 Directive Meaning Example Notes
preceding the first Monday are considered to
be in week 0.
Tue Aug 16 21:30:00 1988
Locale’s appropriate date and time (en_US);
%c (1)
representation. Di 16 Aug 21:30:00 1988
(de_DE)
08/16/88 (None);
%x Locale’s appropriate date representation. 08/16/1988 (en_US); (1)
16.08.1988 (de_DE)

%X Locale’s appropriate time representation. 21:30:00 (en_US); (1)

21:30:00 (de_DE)
%% A literal '%' character. %

Several additional directives not required by the C89 standard are included for convenience. These
parameters all correspond to ISO 8601 date values.

Directive Meaning Example Notes

ISO 8601 year with century representing the

0001, 0002, …, 2013, 2014, …,
%G year that contains the greater part of the ISO (8)
9998, 9999
week ( %V ).

ISO 8601 weekday as a decimal number

%u 1, 2, …, 7
where 1 is Monday.

ISO 8601 week as a decimal number with

%V Monday as the first day of the week. Week 01, 02, …, 53 (8), (9)
01 is the week containing Jan 4.

These may not be available on all platforms when used with the strftime() method. The ISO 8601 year and
ISO 8601 week directives are not interchangeable with the year and week number directives above. Calling
strptime() with incomplete or ambiguous ISO 8601 directives will raise a ValueError .

The full set of format codes supported varies across platforms, because Python calls the platform C library’s
strftime() function, and platform variations are common. To see the full set of format codes supported on
your platform, consult the strftime(3) documentation. There are also differences between platforms in handling
of unsupported format specifiers.

New in version 3.6: %G , %u and %V were added.

Technical Detail

Broadly speaking, d.strftime(fmt) acts like the time module’s time.strftime(fmt, d.timetuple())
although not all objects support a timetuple() method.

For the datetime.strptime() class method, the default value is 1900-01-01T00:00:00.000 : any
components not specified in the format string will be pulled from the default value. [4]

Using datetime.strptime(date_string, format) is equivalent to:

datetime(*(time.strptime(date_string, format)[0:6]))
except when the format includes sub-second components or timezone offset information, which are supported
in datetime.strptime but are discarded by time.strptime .

For time objects, the format codes for year, month, and day should not be used, as time objects have no
such values. If they’re used anyway, 1900 is substituted for the year, and 1 for the month and day.

For date objects, the format codes for hours, minutes, seconds, and microseconds should not be used, as
date objects have no such values. If they’re used anyway, 0 is substituted for them.

For the same reason, handling of format strings containing Unicode code points that can’t be represented in
the charset of the current locale is also platform-dependent. On some platforms such code points are
preserved intact in the output, while on others strftime may raise UnicodeError or return an empty string
instead.

Notes:

1. Because the format depends on the current locale, care should be taken when making assumptions
about the output value. Field orderings will vary (for example, “month/day/year” versus
“day/month/year”), and the output may contain Unicode characters encoded using the locale’s default
encoding (for example, if the current locale is ja_JP , the default encoding could be any one of eucJP ,
SJIS , or utf-8 ; use locale.getlocale() to determine the current locale’s encoding).

2. The strptime() method can parse years in the full [1, 9999] range, but years < 1000 must be zero-
filled to 4-digit width.

Changed in version 3.2: In previous versions, strftime() method was restricted to years >= 1900.

Changed in version 3.3: In version 3.2, strftime() method was restricted to years >= 1000.

3. When used with the strptime() method, the %p directive only affects the output hour field if the %I
directive is used to parse the hour.

4. Unlike the time module, the datetime module does not support leap seconds.

5. When used with the strptime() method, the %f directive accepts from one to six digits and zero pads
on the right. %f is an extension to the set of format characters in the C standard (but implemented
separately in datetime objects, and therefore always available).

6. For a naive object, the %z and %Z format codes are replaced by empty strings.

For an aware object:

%z
utcoffset() is transformed into a string of the form ±HHMM[SS[.ffffff]] , where HH is a 2-digit
string giving the number of UTC offset hours, MM is a 2-digit string giving the number of UTC offset
minutes, SS is a 2-digit string giving the number of UTC offset seconds and ffffff is a 6-digit
string giving the number of UTC offset microseconds. The ffffff part is omitted when the offset is
a whole number of seconds and both the ffffff and the SS part is omitted when the offset is a
whole number of minutes. For example, if utcoffset() returns timedelta(hours=-3,
minutes=-30) , %z is replaced with the string '-0330' .

Changed in version 3.7: The UTC offset is not restricted to a whole number of minutes.

Changed in version 3.7: When the %z directive is provided to the strptime() method, the UTC offsets
can have a colon as a separator between hours, minutes and seconds. For example, '+01:00:00' will
be parsed as an offset of one hour. In addition, providing 'Z' is identical to '+00:00' .
 %Z
In strftime() , %Z is replaced by an empty string if tzname() returns None ; otherwise %Z is
replaced by the returned value, which must be a string.

strptime() only accepts certain values for %Z :

1. any value in time.tzname for your machine’s locale

2. the hard-coded values UTC and GMT

So someone living in Japan may have JST , UTC , and GMT as valid values, but probably not EST . It
will raise ValueError for invalid values.

Changed in version 3.2: When the %z directive is provided to the strptime() method, an aware
datetime object will be produced. The tzinfo of the result will be set to a timezone instance.

7. When used with the strptime() method, %U and %W are only used in calculations when the day of the
week and the calendar year ( %Y ) are specified.

8. Similar to %U and %W , %V is only used in calculations when the day of the week and the ISO year ( %G )
are specified in a strptime() format string. Also note that %G and %Y are not interchangeable.

9. When used with the strptime() method, the leading zero is optional for formats %d , %m , %H , %I , %M ,
%S , %j , %U , %W , and %V . Format %y does require a leading zero.

Footnotes

[1] If, that is, we ignore the effects of Relativity

[2] This matches the definition of the “proleptic Gregorian” calendar in Dershowitz and Reingold’s book
Calendrical Calculations, where it’s the base calendar for all computations. See the book for algorithms
for converting between proleptic Gregorian ordinals and many other calendar systems.

[3] See R. H. van Gent’s guide to the mathematics of the ISO 8601 calendar for a good explanation.

[4] Passing datetime.strptime('Feb 29', '%b %d') will fail since 1900 is not a leap year.