How to force datetime to retain 0 microseconds in python

Question

I need a datetime to retain the microseconds even though they are 0. Here is an example:

from datetime import datetime
starttime = datetime(year=2018, month=2, day=15, hour=8, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0)
print(starttime.isoformat())

I want that to print with 00.000000 seconds. But it prints with 0 seconds. If I put in 1 microsecond then it will print 00.000001.

The issue is that I am using a jquery call that requires the iso format with a float in the seconds position.

Answer 1

You can manually format it with strftime:

>>> starttime = datetime(year=2018, month=2, day=15, hour=8, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0)
>>> starttime.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f")
'2018-02-15T08:00:00.000000'

Vs:

>>> starttime.isoformat()
'2018-02-15T08:00:00'

And:

>>> starttime = datetime(year=2018, month=2, day=15, hour=8, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=1)
>>> starttime.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f")
'2018-02-15T08:00:00.000001'
>>> starttime.isoformat()
'2018-02-15T08:00:00.000001'

Answer 2

(Confirmed to work after Python3.6, will NOT work on 2.7)

isoformat() accepts an argument:

datetime.datetime(2020, 2, 20, 0, 0, 0, 0).isoformat(timespec='microseconds')
Out[17]: '2020-02-20T00:00:00.000000'

possible values:

    'auto': the default behaviour
    'hours': '{:02d}'
    'minutes': '{:02d}:{:02d}'
    'seconds': '{:02d}:{:02d}:{:02d}'
    'milliseconds': '{:02d}:{:02d}:{:02d}.{:03d}'
    'microseconds': '{:02d}:{:02d}:{:02d}.{:06d}'