Turning dates into strings

Working with Dates and Times in Python

Max Shron

Data Scientist and Author

ISO 8601 format

from datetime import date

# Example date
d = date(2017, 11, 5)

# ISO format: YYYY-MM-DD
print(d)

2017-11-05

# Express the date in ISO 8601 format and put it in a list
print( [d.isoformat()] )

['2017-11-05']

# A few dates that computers once had trouble with
some_dates = ['2000-01-01', '1999-12-31']

# Print them in order
print(sorted(some_dates))

['1999-12-31', '2000-01-01']

d.strftime()

# Example date
d = date(2017, 1, 5)

print(d.strftime("%Y"))

# Format string with more text in it
print(d.strftime("Year is %Y"))

Year is 2017

# Format: YYYY/MM/DD
print(d.strftime("%Y/%m/%d"))

2017/01/05

Working with Dates and Times in Python