strftime format string %F %T consistency problem

[kfairbanks]

BPO	15065
Nosy	@bitdancer
Superseder	bpo-3173: external strftime for Python?

^{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 2012-06-14.13:29:27.729>
created_at = <Date 2012-06-14.12:48:00.590>
labels = ['type-bug']
title = 'strftime format string %F %T consistency problem'
updated_at = <Date 2012-06-14.13:29:27.699>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/kfairbanks'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2012-06-14.13:29:27.699>
actor = 'r.david.murray'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2012-06-14.13:29:27.729>
closer = 'r.david.murray'
components = []
creation = <Date 2012-06-14.12:48:00.590>
creator = 'kfairbanks'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 15065
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['162779', '162785']
nosy_count = 2.0
nosy_names = ['r.david.murray', 'kfairbanks']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'duplicate'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = '3173'
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue15065'
versions = ['Python 3.2']

[kfairbanks]

When using %F and %T in strftime on Mac and Linux the function works as expected, but it fails on Windows. Although these format strings are not in the Python documentation, the inconsistent behavior should be noted or corrected. If possible, the %F and %T could be expanded in some way on Windows systems or cause a format string error on POSIX systems so that the function behaves the same way across platforms.

[bitdancer]

The reason the codes are not documented is that they are not supported. Because we delegate to the system strftime, they happen to work.

To change that the most sensible thing would be to have our own strftime implementation, which makes this essentially a duplicate of bpo-3173. See also bpo-14441.