Python date string formatting

Question

I want to remove the padded zeroes from a string-formatted python date:

formatted_date = my_date.strftime("%m/%d/%Y") # outputs something like: 01/01/2013
date_out = formatted_date.replace(r'/0', r'/').replace(r'^0', r'') 

The second replace doesnt work-- I get 01/1/2013. How do I match the zero only if it's next to the beginning of the string?

Answer 1

.replace() does not take regular expressions. You are trying to replace the literal text ^0.

Use str.format() to create a date format without zero-padding instead:

'{0.month}/{0.day}/{0.year}'.format(my_date)

and avoid having to replace the zeros.

Demo:

>>> import datetime
>>> today = datetime.date.today()
>>> '{0.month}/{0.day}/{0.year}'.format(today)
'9/10/2013'

If Python was compiled with the glibc library, then you could also use dashes in the format to suppress the padding:

my_date.strftime('%-m/%-d/%y')

but that is not nearly as portable.