strftime - Datetime Formatting on Linux

Formatting Dates and Times

Formatting datetime on Linux uses mostly the same format as Python's strftime function.

This uses format specifiers starting with a percent sign %.
Each one represents a specific way to output a part of the date or time.

Format Specifiers

Some of these specifiers are zero-padded.
If they don't have non-zero-padded alts, try %-X where X is the original specifier.
E.g.:

strftime(format='%-m')
# 03
strftime(format='%-m')
# 3

Seconds

• %S: Second of the minute (00..60)
• %L: Millisecond of the second (000..999)
• %s: Number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.

Minutes

• %M: Minute of the hour (00..59 zero-padded)
• %-M: Minute as a decimal number. (0, 1..59 non zero-padded)

Hours

• %H: Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (00..23)
• %I: Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (01..12)
• %k: Hour of the day, 24-hour clock, blank-padded ( 0..23)
• %l: Hour of the day, 12-hour clock, blank-padded ( 0..12)

Days

• %a: Abbreviated weekday name (“Sun”)
• %A: Full weekday name (Sunday)
• %w: Day of the week (Sunday is 0, 0..6)
• %u: Day of the week (Monday is 1, 1..7)
• %d: Day of the month (01..31)
• %e: Day of the month (1..31)
• %j: Day of the year (001..366)

Weeks

• %w: Day of the week (Sunday is 0, 0..6)
• %U: Week number of the current year, starting with the first Sunday as the first day of the first week (00..53)
• %V: Week number of year according to ISO 8601 (01..53)

Months

• %b: Abbreviated month name (Jan)
• %B: Full month name (January)
• %m: Month of the year (01..12)

Years

• %y: Year without a century (00..99)
• %Y: Year with century

Others

• %p: Meridian indicator (AM or PM)
• %P: Meridian indicator (“am” or “pm”)
• %c: Preferred local date and time representation
• %Z: Time zone name
• %%: Literal % character
• %C: Century (20 in 2009)
• %D: U.S. Date (%m/%d/%y)
• %n: Newline (n)
• %t: Tab character (t)