Question

I am trying to use datetime objects, including datetime.month, datetime.day, and datetime.hour.

The problem is that these objects (say datetime.month) give values as 1, 2, 3, and so on to 12. Instead, I need these in the format 01,02,03 and so on to 12. There’s a similar issue with days and months.

How can I switch to this format?

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I realized this wasn’t a very clear question:

I’m using string formatting to print values from a dictionary I have with timestamps.

So, the expression is roughly:

print "%s-%s-%s"%(date.year, date.month, date.day, etc., len(str) )

My values were originally in the correct "%Y-%m-%d form (such as 2000-01-01). Using the above, I get 2000-1-1.

Answer 1

You can print the individual attributes using string formatting:

print ('%02d' % (mydate.month))

Or more recent string formatting (introduced in python 2.6):

print ('{0:02d}'.format(a.month))  # python 2.7+ -- '{:02d}' will work

Note that even:

print ('{0:%m}'.format(a))  # python 2.7+ -- '{:%m}' will work.

will work.

or alternatively using the strftime method of datetime objects:

print (mydate.strftime('%m'))

And just for the sake of completeness:

print (mydate.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')) 

will nicely replace the code in your edit.