strptime, strftime documentation

[mikejs]

BPO	7699
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @ezio-melotti, @bitdancer, @briancurtin
Files	strptime.diff strptime.diff

^{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 2012-06-10.14:05:57.706>
created_at = <Date 2010-01-14.01:46:00.633>
labels = ['docs']
title = 'strptime, strftime documentation'
updated_at = <Date 2012-06-10.14:05:57.676>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/mikejs'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2012-06-10.14:05:57.676>
actor = 'r.david.murray'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2012-06-10.14:05:57.706>
closer = 'r.david.murray'
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2010-01-14.01:46:00.633>
creator = 'mikejs'
dependencies = []
files = ['15866', '15868']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 7699
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['97748', '97751', '97753', '162586']
nosy_count = 6.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'ezio.melotti', 'r.david.murray', 'brian.curtin', 'mikejs', 'docs@python']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue7699'
versions = ['Python 2.6', 'Python 3.1', 'Python 2.7', 'Python 3.2']

[mikejs]

The documentation for strftime and strptime behavior strikes me as a bit jumbled right now. The behavior of datetime.datetime.strptime is explained by a reference to time.strptime, which in turn references time.strftime to explain the format string.

The docs for the datetime.{datetime,date,time}.strftime methods, on the other hand, reference the 'strftime Behavior' section of the datetime module docs to explain the behavior of the format string. This section even notes the differences between strptime and strftime behavior.

I've tried to clear this up a little bit by renaming this section 'strftime and strptime Behavior' and referencing it from the datetime.datetime.strptime docs.

[briancurtin]

Seems reasonable.

Additionally, the block about time.strftime not utilizing date related formats (line 1514 in the patched file) can be removed. It has worked for a long time (forever?).

>>> time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", time.localtime())
'2010-01-13 21:32:52'

[mikejs]

I think it's referring to:

>>> datetime.time(10, 34, 6).strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
'1900-01-01 10:34:06'

and thus still applies. It is wrong about month and day being replaced by '0', however, and I've updated the patch to change that to '1'.

[bitdancer]

This was applied by Georg in SVN revision r77561 on 2010-01-17.