Python: Generate a date time string that I can use in for MySQL

Question

How to do this:

from time import time
import datetime
current_time = time.strftime(r"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S", time.localtime())
l.add_value('time', current_time)

this will end up in an error:

print time.strftime(r"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S", time.localtime()) exceptions.AttributeError: 'builtin_function_or_method' object has no attribute 'strftime'

I found plenty of information - but it seems as if I either need to put it directly into an sql query or import anything else? I'd like to have the time in a string first to pass it to my object.

Answer 1

You are importing a time() function from the time module. Instead, you need to import the module. Replace:

from time import time

with:

import time

Demo:

>>> from time import time
>>> current_time = time.strftime(r"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S", time.localtime())
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'builtin_function_or_method' object has no attribute 'strftime'

>>> import time
>>> current_time = time.strftime(r"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S", time.localtime())
>>> current_time
'13.05.2015 15:26:45'

---

As a side note, another option to have a time stamp attached to a scraped item in the database, would be to use NOW() MySQL function and call it while inserting an item into the database in the pipeline.