———
This module provides various time-related functions. For related functionality, see also the
and
modules.
Although this module is always available, not all functions are available on all platforms. Most of the functions defined in this module call platform C library functions with the same name. It may sometimes be helpful to consult the platform documentation, because the semantics of these functions varies among platforms.
An explanation of some terminology and conventions is in order.
The epoch is the point where the time starts, the return value of time.gmtime(0). It is January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 (UTC) on all platforms.
The term seconds since the epoch refers to the total number of elapsed seconds since the epoch, typically excluding
. Leap seconds are excluded from this total on all POSIX-compliant platforms.
The functions in this module may not handle dates and times before the
or far in the future. The cut-off point in the future is determined by the C library; for 32-bit systems, it is typically in 2038.
Function
can parse 2-digit years when given %y format code. When 2-digit years are parsed, they are converted according to the POSIX and ISO C standards: values 69–99 are mapped to 1969–1999, and values 0–68 are mapped to 2000–2068.
UTC is
and superseded
or GMT as the basis of international timekeeping. The acronym UTC is not a mistake but conforms to an earlier, language-agnostic naming scheme for time standards such as UT0, UT1, and UT2.
DST is Daylight Saving Time, an adjustment of the timezone by (usually) one hour during part of the year. DST rules are magic (determined by local law) and can change from year to year. The C library has a table containing the local rules (often it is read from a system file for flexibility) and is the only source of True Wisdom in this respect.
The precision of the various real-time functions may be less than suggested by the units in which their value or argument is expressed. E.g. on most Unix systems, the clock “ticks” only 50 or 100 times a second.
On the other hand, the precision of
and
is better than their Unix equivalents: times are expressed as floating-point numbers, time() returns the most accurate time available (using Unix gettimeofday() where available), and sleep() will accept a time with a nonzero fraction (Unix select() is used to implement this, where available).
The time value as returned by
,
, and
, and accepted by
,
and
, is a sequence of 9 integers. The return values of gmtime(), localtime(), and strptime() also offer attribute names for individual fields.
See
for a description of these objects.
Changed in version 3.3: The
type was extended to provide the
and
attributes when platform supports corresponding structtm members.
Changed in version 3.6: The
attributes
and
are now available on all platforms.
Use the following functions to convert between time representations:
From
To
Use
seconds since the epoch
in UTC
seconds since the epoch
in local time
in UTC
seconds since the epoch
in local time
seconds since the epoch
Functions
time.asctime([time_tuple])
Convert a tuple or
representing a time as returned by
or
to a string of the following form: 'SunJun2023:21:051993'. The day field is two characters long and is space padded if the day is a single digit, for example: 'WedJun904:26:401993'.
If time_tuple is not provided, the current time as returned by
is used. Locale information is not used by asctime().
Note
Unlike the C function of the same name, asctime() does not add a trailing newline.
time.pthread_getcpuclockid(thread_id, /)
Return the clk_id of the thread-specific CPU-time clock for the specified thread_id.
Use
or the
attribute of
objects to get a suitable value for thread_id.
Warning
Passing an invalid or expired thread_id may result in undefined behavior, such as segmentation fault.
Added in version 3.7.
time.clock_getres(clk_id, /)
Return the resolution (precision) of the specified clock clk_id. Refer to
for a list of accepted values for clk_id.
Added in version 3.3.
time.clock_gettime(clk_id, /)→
Return the time of the specified clock clk_id. Refer to
for a list of accepted values for clk_id.
Use
to avoid the precision loss caused by the
type.
Added in version 3.3.
time.clock_gettime_ns(clk_id, /)→
Similar to
but return time as nanoseconds.
Added in version 3.7.
time.clock_settime(clk_id, time:
, /)
Set the time of the specified clock clk_id. Currently,
is the only accepted value for clk_id.
Use
to avoid the precision loss caused by the
type.
Added in version 3.3.
time.clock_settime_ns(clk_id, time:
, /)
Similar to
but set time with nanoseconds.
Added in version 3.7.
time.ctime(seconds=None, /)
Convert a time expressed in seconds since the
to a string of a form: 'SunJun2023:21:051993' representing local time. The day field is two characters long and is space padded if the day is a single digit, for example: 'WedJun904:26:401993'.
If seconds is not provided or
, the current time as returned by
is used. ctime(seconds) is equivalent to asctime(localtime(seconds)). Locale information is not used by ctime().
time.get_clock_info(name, /)
Get information on the specified clock as a namespace object. Supported clock names and the corresponding functions to read their value are:
'monotonic':
'perf_counter':
'process_time':
'thread_time':
'time':
The result has the following attributes:
adjustable: True if the clock can be set to jump forward or backward in time, False otherwise. Does not refer to gradual NTP rate adjustments.
implementation: The name of the underlying C function used to get the clock value. Refer to
for possible values.
monotonic: True if the clock cannot go backward, False otherwise
resolution: The resolution of the clock in seconds (
)
Added in version 3.3.
time.gmtime(seconds=None, /)
Convert a time expressed in seconds since the
to a
in UTC in which the dst flag is always zero. If seconds is not provided or
, the current time as returned by
is used. Fractions of a second are ignored. See above for a description of the struct_time object. See
for the inverse of this function.
time.localtime(seconds=None, /)
Like
but converts to local time. If seconds is not provided or
, the current time as returned by
is used. The dst flag is set to 1 when DST applies to the given time.
localtime() may raise
, if the timestamp is outside the range of values supported by the platform C localtime() or gmtime() functions, and
on localtime() or gmtime() failure. It’s common for this to be restricted to years between 1970 and 2038.
time.mktime(time_tuple, /)
This is the inverse function of
. Its argument is the
or full 9-tuple (since the dst flag is needed; use -1 as the dst flag if it is unknown) which expresses the time in local time, not UTC. It returns a floating-point number, for compatibility with
. If the input value cannot be represented as a valid time, either
or
will be raised (which depends on whether the invalid value is caught by Python or the underlying C libraries). The earliest date for which it can generate a time is platform-dependent.
time.monotonic()→
Return the value (in fractional seconds) of a monotonic clock, i.e. a clock that cannot go backwards. The clock is not affected by system clock updates. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of two calls is valid.
Clock:
On Windows, call QueryPerformanceCounter() and QueryPerformanceFrequency().
On macOS, call mach_absolute_time() and mach_timebase_info().
On HP-UX, call gethrtime().
Call clock_gettime(CLOCK_HIGHRES) if available.
Otherwise, call clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC).
Use
to avoid the precision loss caused by the
type.
Added in version 3.3.
Changed in version 3.5: The function is now always available and the clock is now the same for all processes.
Changed in version 3.10: On macOS, the clock is now the same for all processes.
time.monotonic_ns()→
Similar to
, but return time as nanoseconds.
Added in version 3.7.
time.perf_counter()→
Return the value (in fractional seconds) of a performance counter, i.e. a clock with the highest available resolution to measure a short duration. It does include time elapsed during sleep. The clock is the same for all processes. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of two calls is valid.
CPython implementation detail: On CPython, use the same clock as
and is a monotonic clock, i.e. a clock that cannot go backwards.
Use
to avoid the precision loss caused by the
type.
Added in version 3.3.
Changed in version 3.10: On Windows, the clock is now the same for all processes.
Changed in version 3.13: Use the same clock as
.
time.perf_counter_ns()→
Similar to
, but return time as nanoseconds.
Added in version 3.7.
time.process_time()→
Return the value (in fractional seconds) of the sum of the system and user CPU time of the current process. It does not include time elapsed during sleep. It is process-wide by definition. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of two calls is valid.
Use
to avoid the precision loss caused by the
type.
Added in version 3.3.
time.process_time_ns()→
Similar to
but return time as nanoseconds.
Added in version 3.7.
time.sleep(seconds, /)
Suspend execution of the calling thread for the given number of seconds. The argument may be a floating-point number to indicate a more precise sleep time.
If the sleep is interrupted by a signal and no exception is raised by the signal handler, the sleep is restarted with a recomputed timeout.
The suspension time may be longer than requested by an arbitrary amount, because of the scheduling of other activity in the system.
Windows implementation
On Windows, if seconds is zero, the thread relinquishes the remainder of its time slice to any other thread that is ready to run. If there are no other threads ready to run, the function returns immediately, and the thread continues execution. On Windows 10 and newer the implementation uses a
which provides resolution of 100 nanoseconds. If seconds is zero, Sleep(0) is used.
Unix implementation
Use clock_nanosleep() if available (resolution: 1 nanosecond);
Or use nanosleep() if available (resolution: 1 nanosecond);
Or use select() (resolution: 1 microsecond).
Raises an
time.sleep with argument seconds.
Changed in version 3.5: The function now sleeps at least seconds even if the sleep is interrupted by a signal, except if the signal handler raises an exception (see
for the rationale).
Changed in version 3.11: On Unix, the clock_nanosleep() and nanosleep() functions are now used if available. On Windows, a waitable timer is now used.
Changed in version 3.13: Raises an auditing event.
time.strftime(format[, time_tuple])
Convert a tuple or
representing a time as returned by
or
to a string as specified by the format argument. If time_tuple is not provided, the current time as returned by localtime() is used. format must be a string.
is raised if any field in time_tuple is outside of the allowed range.
0 is a legal argument for any position in the time tuple; if it is normally illegal the value is forced to a correct one.
The following directives can be embedded in the format string. They are shown without the optional field width and precision specification, and are replaced by the indicated characters in the strftime() result:
Directive
Meaning
Notes
%a
Locale’s abbreviated weekday name.
%A
Locale’s full weekday name.
%b
Locale’s abbreviated month name.
%B
Locale’s full month name.
%c
Locale’s appropriate date and time representation.
%d
Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31].
%f
Microseconds as a decimal number[000000,999999].
(1)
%H
Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23].
%I
Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12].
%j
Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366].
%m
Month as a decimal number [01,12].
%M
Minute as a decimal number [00,59].
%p
Locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM.
(2)
%S
Second as a decimal number [00,61].
(3)
%U
Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0.
(4)
%u
Day of the week (Monday is 1; Sunday is 7) as a decimal number [1, 7].
%w
Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6].
%W
Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. All days in a new year preceding the first Monday are considered to be in week 0.
(4)
%x
Locale’s appropriate date representation.
%X
Locale’s appropriate time representation.
%y
Year without century as a decimal number [00,99].
%Y
Year with century as a decimal number.
%z
Time zone offset indicating a positive or negative time difference from UTC/GMT of the form +HHMM or -HHMM, where H represents decimal hour digits and M represents decimal minute digits [-23:59, +23:59].
%Z
Time zone name (no characters if no time zone exists). Deprecated.
%G
ISO 8601 year (similar to %Y but follows the rules for the ISO 8601 calendar year). The year starts with the week that contains the first Thursday of the calendar year.
%V
ISO 8601 week number (as a decimal number [01,53]). The first week of the year is the one that contains the first Thursday of the year. Weeks start on Monday.
%%
A literal '%' character.
Notes:
The %f format directive only applies to
, not to strftime(). However, see also
and
where the %f format directive
.
When used with the
function, the %p directive only affects the output hour field if the %I directive is used to parse the hour.
The range really is 0 to 61; value 60 is valid in timestamps representing
and value 61 is supported for historical reasons.
When used with the
function, %U and %W are only used in calculations when the day of the week and the year are specified.
Here is an example, a format for dates compatible with that specified in the
Internet email standard.
>>> fromtimeimportgmtime,strftime>>> strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S +0000",gmtime())'Thu, 28 Jun 2001 14:17:15 +0000'Additional directives may be supported on certain platforms, but only the ones listed here have a meaning standardized by ANSI C. To see the full set of format codes supported on your platform, consult the
documentation.
On some platforms, an optional field width and precision specification can immediately follow the initial '%' of a directive in the following order; this is also not portable. The field width is normally 2 except for %j where it is 3.
time.strptime(string[, format])
Parse a string representing a time according to a format. The return value is a
as returned by
or
.
The format parameter uses the same directives as those used by
; it defaults to "%a%b%d%H:%M:%S%Y" which matches the formatting returned by
. If string cannot be parsed according to format, or if it has excess data after parsing,
is raised. The default values used to fill in any missing data when more accurate values cannot be inferred are (1900,1,1,0,0,0,0,1,-1). Both string and format must be strings.
For example:
>>> importtime>>> time.strptime("30 Nov 00","%d %b %y")time.struct_time(tm_year=2000, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=335, tm_isdst=-1)Support for the %Z directive is based on the values contained in tzname and whether daylight is true. Because of this, it is platform-specific except for recognizing UTC and GMT which are always known (and are considered to be non-daylight savings timezones).
Only the directives specified in the documentation are supported. Because strftime() is implemented per platform it can sometimes offer more directives than those listed. But strptime() is independent of any platform and thus does not necessarily support all directives available that are not documented as supported.
classtime.struct_time
The type of the time value sequence returned by
,
, and
. It is an object with a
interface: values can be accessed by index and by attribute name. The following values are present:
Index
Attribute
Values
0
tm_year
(for example, 1993)
1
tm_mon
range [1, 12]
2
tm_mday
range [1, 31]
3
tm_hour
range [0, 23]
4
tm_min
range [0, 59]
5
tm_sec
range [0, 61]; see
in
6
tm_wday
range [0, 6]; Monday is 0
7
tm_yday
range [1, 366]
8
tm_isdst
0, 1 or -1; see below
N/A
tm_zone
abbreviation of timezone name
N/A
tm_gmtoff
offset east of UTC in seconds
Note that unlike the C structure, the month value is a range of [1, 12], not [0, 11].
In calls to
,
may be set to 1 when daylight savings time is in effect, and 0 when it is not. A value of -1 indicates that this is not known, and will usually result in the correct state being filled in.
When a tuple with an incorrect length is passed to a function expecting a struct_time, or having elements of the wrong type, a
is raised.
time.time()→
Return the time in seconds since the
as a floating-point number. The handling of
is platform dependent. On Windows and most Unix systems, the leap seconds are not counted towards the time in seconds since the
. This is commonly referred to as
.
Note that even though the time is always returned as a floating-point number, not all systems provide time with a better precision than 1 second. While this function normally returns non-decreasing values, it can return a lower value than a previous call if the system clock has been set back between the two calls.
The number returned by time() may be converted into a more common time format (i.e. year, month, day, hour, etc…) in UTC by passing it to
function or in local time by passing it to the
function. In both cases a
object is returned, from which the components of the calendar date may be accessed as attributes.
Clock:
On Windows, call GetSystemTimePreciseAsFileTime().
Call clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME) if available.
Otherwise, call gettimeofday().
Use
to avoid the precision loss caused by the
type.
Changed in version 3.13: On Windows, calls GetSystemTimePreciseAsFileTime() instead of GetSystemTimeAsFileTime().
time.time_ns()→
Similar to
but returns time as an integer number of nanoseconds since the
.
Added in version 3.7.
time.thread_time()→
Return the value (in fractional seconds) of the sum of the system and user CPU time of the current thread. It does not include time elapsed during sleep. It is thread-specific by definition. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of two calls in the same thread is valid.
Use
to avoid the precision loss caused by the
type.
: Linux, Unix, Windows.
Unix systems supporting CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID.
Added in version 3.7.
time.thread_time_ns()→
Similar to
but return time as nanoseconds.
Added in version 3.7.
time.tzset()
Reset the time conversion rules used by the library routines. The environment variable TZ specifies how this is done. It will also set the variables tzname (from the TZ environment variable), timezone (non-DST seconds West of UTC), altzone (DST seconds west of UTC) and daylight (to 0 if this timezone does not have any daylight saving time rules, or to nonzero if there is a time, past, present or future when daylight saving time applies).
Note
Although in many cases, changing the TZ environment variable may affect the output of functions like
without calling tzset(), this behavior should not be relied on.
The TZ environment variable should contain no whitespace.
The standard format of the TZ environment variable is (whitespace added for clarity):
stdoffset[dst[offset[,start[/time],end[/time]]]]Where the components are:
std and dstThree or more alphanumerics giving the timezone abbreviations. These will be propagated into time.tzname
offsetThe offset has the form: ±hh[:mm[:ss]]. This indicates the value added the local time to arrive at UTC. If preceded by a ‘-’, the timezone is east of the Prime Meridian; otherwise, it is west. If no offset follows dst, summer time is assumed to be one hour ahead of standard time.
start[/time],end[/time]Indicates when to change to and back from DST. The format of the start and end dates are one of the following:
JnThe Julian day n (1 <= n <= 365). Leap days are not counted, so in all years February 28 is day 59 and March 1 is day 60.
nThe zero-based Julian day (0 <= n <= 365). Leap days are counted, and it is possible to refer to February 29.
Mm.n.dThe d’th day (0 <= d <= 6) of week n of month m of the year (1 <= n <= 5, 1 <= m <= 12, where week 5 means “the last d day in month m” which may occur in either the fourth or the fifth week). Week 1 is the first week in which the d’th day occurs. Day zero is a Sunday.
time has the same format as offset except that no leading sign (‘-’ or ‘+’) is allowed. The default, if time is not given, is 02:00:00.
>>> os.environ['TZ']='EST+05EDT,M4.1.0,M10.5.0'>>> time.tzset()>>> time.strftime('%X%x %Z')'02:07:36 05/08/03 EDT'>>> os.environ['TZ']='AEST-10AEDT-11,M10.5.0,M3.5.0'>>> time.tzset()>>> time.strftime('%X%x %Z')'16:08:12 05/08/03 AEST'On many Unix systems (including *BSD, Linux, Solaris, and Darwin), it is more convenient to use the system’s zoneinfo (
) database to specify the timezone rules. To do this, set the TZ environment variable to the path of the required timezone datafile, relative to the root of the systems ‘zoneinfo’ timezone database, usually located at /usr/share/zoneinfo. For example, 'US/Eastern', 'Australia/Melbourne', 'Egypt' or 'Europe/Amsterdam'.
>>> os.environ['TZ']='US/Eastern'>>> time.tzset()>>> time.tzname('EST', 'EDT')>>> os.environ['TZ']='Egypt'>>> time.tzset()>>> time.tzname('EET', 'EEST')Clock ID Constants
These constants are used as parameters for
and
.
time.CLOCK_BOOTTIME
Identical to
, except it also includes any time that the system is suspended.
This allows applications to get a suspend-aware monotonic clock without having to deal with the complications of
, which may have discontinuities if the time is changed using settimeofday() or similar.
Added in version 3.7.
time.CLOCK_HIGHRES
The Solaris OS has a CLOCK_HIGHRES timer that attempts to use an optimal hardware source, and may give close to nanosecond resolution. CLOCK_HIGHRES is the nonadjustable, high-resolution clock.
Added in version 3.3.
time.CLOCK_MONOTONIC
Clock that cannot be set and represents monotonic time since some unspecified starting point.
Added in version 3.3.
time.CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW
Similar to
, but provides access to a raw hardware-based time that is not subject to NTP adjustments.
Added in version 3.3.
time.CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW_APPROX
Similar to
, but reads a value cached by the system at context switch and hence has less accuracy.
Added in version 3.13.
time.CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID
High-resolution per-process timer from the CPU.
Added in version 3.3.
time.CLOCK_PROF
High-resolution per-process timer from the CPU.
Added in version 3.7.
time.CLOCK_TAI
The system must have a current leap second table in order for this to give the correct answer. PTP or NTP software can maintain a leap second table.
Added in version 3.9.
time.CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID
Thread-specific CPU-time clock.
Added in version 3.3.
time.CLOCK_UPTIME
Time whose absolute value is the time the system has been running and not suspended, providing accurate uptime measurement, both absolute and interval.
Added in version 3.7.
time.CLOCK_UPTIME_RAW
Clock that increments monotonically, tracking the time since an arbitrary point, unaffected by frequency or time adjustments and not incremented while the system is asleep.
Added in version 3.8.
time.CLOCK_UPTIME_RAW_APPROX
Like
, but the value is cached by the system at context switches and therefore has less accuracy.
Added in version 3.13.
The following constant is the only parameter that can be sent to
.
time.CLOCK_REALTIME
Real-time clock. Setting this clock requires appropriate privileges. The clock is the same for all processes.
Added in version 3.3.
Timezone Constants
time.altzone
The offset of the local DST timezone, in seconds west of UTC, if one is defined. This is negative if the local DST timezone is east of UTC (as in Western Europe, including the UK). Only use this if daylight is nonzero. See note below.
time.daylight
Nonzero if a DST timezone is defined. See note below.
time.timezone
The offset of the local (non-DST) timezone, in seconds west of UTC (negative in most of Western Europe, positive in the US, zero in the UK). See note below.
time.tzname
A tuple of two strings: the first is the name of the local non-DST timezone, the second is the name of the local DST timezone. If no DST timezone is defined, the second string should not be used. See note below.
Note
For the above Timezone constants (
,
,
, and
), the value is determined by the timezone rules in effect at module load time or the last time
is called and may be incorrect for times in the past. It is recommended to use the
and
results from
to obtain timezone information.
See also
Module
More object-oriented interface to dates and times.
Module
Internationalization services. The locale setting affects the interpretation of many format specifiers in
and
.
Module
General calendar-related functions.
is the inverse of
from this module.
Footnotes