How do I get a string format of the current date time, in python?

Question

You can use the datetime module for working with dates and times in Python. The strftime method allows you to produce string representation of dates and times with a format you specify.

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.date.today().strftime("%B %d, %Y")
'July 23, 2010'
>>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%I:%M%p on %B %d, %Y")
'10:36AM on July 23, 2010'

#python3

import datetime
print(
    '1: test-{date:%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S}.txt'.format( date=datetime.datetime.now() )
    )

d = datetime.datetime.now()
print( "2a: {:%B %d, %Y}".format(d))

# see the f" to tell python this is a f string, no .format
print(f"2b: {d:%B %d, %Y}")

print(f"3: Today is {datetime.datetime.now():%Y-%m-%d} yay")

1: test-2018-02-14_16:40:52.txt

2a: March 04, 2018

2b: March 04, 2018

3: Today is 2018-11-11 yay

---

Description:

Using the new string format to inject value into a string at placeholder {}, value is the current time.

Then rather than just displaying the raw value as {}, use formatting to obtain the correct date format.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html#formatexamples

>>> import datetime
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> now.strftime("%B %d, %Y")
'July 23, 2010'

If you don't care about formatting and you just need some quick date, you can use this:

import time
print(time.ctime())