How to get formatted date time in python

Question

I want my Linux Filename like this

May-01-0340AM-2011.tar

How can i get the date variable formatted like above in Python

IN bash i write

date1=$(date +"%b-%d-%I%M%p-%G")

Answer 1

You can use the same formatting string in strftime on a datetime object:

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%b-%d-%I%M%p-%G')
'May-16-0245PM-2011'

Incidentally, I'd just like to put a word in for the joy of ISO-8601 date formatting

Answer 2

Same formatting, using strftime():

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%b-%d-%I%M%p-%G')
'May-16-1050PM-2011'

To get your filename, it's as simple as:

 >>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%b-%d-%I%M%p-%G') + '.tar'
'May-16-1050PM-2011.tar'