[python] Python datetime to string without microsecond component

I'm adding UTC time strings to Bitbucket API responses that currently only contain Amsterdam (!) time strings. For consistency with the UTC time strings returned elsewhere, the desired format is 2011-11-03 11:07:04 (followed by +00:00, but that's not germane).

What's the best way to create such a string (without a microsecond component) from a datetime instance with a microsecond component?

>>> import datetime
>>> print unicode(datetime.datetime.now())
2011-11-03 11:13:39.278026

I'll add the best option that's occurred to me as a possible answer, but there may well be a more elegant solution.

Edit: I should mention that I'm not actually printing the current time – I used datetime.now to provide a quick example. So the solution should not assume that any datetime instances it receives will include microsecond components.

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> dt = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d %X")
>>> print(dt)
'2021-02-05 04:10:24'

As of Python 3.6+, the best way of doing this is by the new timespec argument for isoformat.

isoformat(timespec='seconds', sep=' ')

Usage:

>>> datetime.now().isoformat(timespec='seconds')
'2020-10-16T18:38:21'
>>> datetime.now().isoformat(timespec='seconds', sep=' ')
'2020-10-16 18:38:35'

This I use because I can understand and hence remember it better (and date time format also can be customized based on your choice) :-

import datetime
moment = datetime.datetime.now()
print("{}/{}/{} {}:{}:{}".format(moment.day, moment.month, moment.year,
                                 moment.hour, moment.minute, moment.second))

I found this to be the simplest way.

>>> t = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> t
datetime.datetime(2018, 11, 30, 17, 21, 26, 606191)
>>> t = str(t).split('.')
>>> t
['2018-11-30 17:21:26', '606191']
>>> t = t[0]
>>> t
'2018-11-30 17:21:26'
>>> 

I usually do:

import datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()
now = now.replace(microsecond=0)  # To print now without microsecond.

# To print now:
print(now)

output:

2019-01-13 14:40:28

In Python 3.6:

from datetime import datetime
datetime.now().isoformat(' ', 'seconds')
'2017-01-11 14:41:33'

https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/datetime.html#datetime.datetime.isoformat

This is the way I do it. ISO format:

import datetime
datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).isoformat()
# Returns: '2017-01-23T14:58:07'

You can replace the 'T' if you don't want ISO format:

datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).isoformat(' ')
# Returns: '2017-01-23 15:05:27'

>>> import datetime
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> print unicode(now.replace(microsecond=0))
2011-11-03 11:19:07

Since not all datetime.datetime instances have a microsecond component (i.e. when it is zero), you can partition the string on a "." and take only the first item, which will always work:

unicode(datetime.datetime.now()).partition('.')[0]

We can try something like below

import datetime

date_generated = datetime.datetime.now()
date_generated.replace(microsecond=0).isoformat(' ').partition('+')[0]

Keep the first 19 characters that you wanted via slicing:

>>> str(datetime.datetime.now())[:19]
'2011-11-03 14:37:50'

Yet another option:

>>> import time
>>> time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
'2011-11-03 11:31:28'

By default this uses local time, if you need UTC you can use the following:

>>> time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", time.gmtime())
'2011-11-03 18:32:20'