strftime docs do not explain locale effect on result string

[barry-scott]

BPO	5904
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @barry-scott, @abalkin, @vstinner, @wolever, @ezio-melotti, @merwok, @bitdancer
Files	issue5904.patch: Update docs for strftime specifying that it returns a locale dependent byte string.

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2014-06-13.21:25:23.911>
created_at = <Date 2009-05-02.13:25:37.558>
labels = ['easy', 'docs']
title = 'strftime docs do not explain locale effect on result string'
updated_at = <Date 2014-06-13.21:25:23.909>
user = 'https://github.com/barry-scott'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2014-06-13.21:25:23.909>
actor = 'r.david.murray'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2014-06-13.21:25:23.911>
closer = 'r.david.murray'
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2009-05-02.13:25:37.558>
creator = 'barry-scott'
dependencies = []
files = ['34940']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 5904
keywords = ['patch', 'easy']
message_count = 7.0
messages = ['86946', '108165', '216628', '216659', '216661', '220502', '220503']
nosy_count = 11.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'barry-scott', 'belopolsky', 'vstinner', 'wolever', 'ezio.melotti', 'eric.araujo', 'r.david.murray', 'docs@python', 'python-dev', 'math_foo']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue5904'
versions = ['Python 2.7']

[barry-scott]

The result of time.strftime seems to be in the locale encoding
but this is not pointed out in the documentation.

Ideally an example like this would be in the docs to show how to
deal with strftime output:

import locale
import time

locale_encoded_time = time.strftime( '%d-%b-%Y %H:%M:%S' )

language, encoding = locale.getdefaultlocale()
unicode_time = locale_encoded_time.decode( encoding )

[abalkin]

Victor, this is your chance to add French to Python docs!

[mathfoo]

Added to Docs that strftime will return a locale dependent byte string.

[merwok]

This may help: http://blog.codekills.net/2013/04/13/strftime--table-of-locale-aware-formatters-in-different-locales/

[wolever]

It may also be worth noting that the strftime formatters table now includes examples from different locales: https://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html#strftime-strptime-behavior

This change was introduced about a year ago.

[python-dev]

New changeset 31adcc4c4391 by R David Murray in branch '2.7':
bpo-5904: Add sentence about the encoding of strftime's result.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/31adcc4c4391

[bitdancer]

Thanks, Caelyn. I used your patch but added a clause showing explicitly how do the unicode conversion. I decided to not add that to the datetime, docs, since they are already pretty clear.