Display timestamp in django template

Question

I need to display timestamp of a post with in django template. The timestamp would be like:

"timestamp":1337453263939 in milli seconds

I can convert the timestamp into datetime object and render it in the view. Is there is any direct way to display through the template? The output should be:

print(datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(1337453263.939))
2012-05-20 00:17:43.939000

Answer 1

{% now "U" %}

The "U" is a date format for Unix epoch, and can also be used with built-in date filter. So, if you have the date in a variable:

{{ value|date:"U" }}

Answer 2

You could use custom template filters (see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/custom-template-tags/). In your case it could like this:

1. Create directory 'templatetags' in application with view, that renders template.

2. Put into this dir blank file "__init__.py" and "timetags.py" with code:

   from django import template
   import datetime
   register = template.Library()
   
   def print_timestamp(timestamp):
       try:
           #assume, that timestamp is given in seconds with decimal point
           ts = float(timestamp)
       except ValueError:
           return None
       return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(ts)
   
   register.filter(print_timestamp)
   

3. In your template, add

   {% load timetags %}
   

4. Use following syntax in template:

   {{ timestamp|print_timestamp }}
   

   Where timestamp = 1337453263.939 from your example

This will print timestamp in local date and time format. If you want to customize output, you can modify print_timestamp in following way:

import time
def print_timestamp(timestamp):
    ...
    #specify format here
    return time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", time.gmtime(ts))