The time.time() function returns the number of seconds since the epoch, as a float. Note that “the epoch” is defined as the start of January 1st, 1970 in UTC. So the epoch is defined in terms of UTC and establishes a global moment in time. No matter where on Earth you are, “seconds past epoch” (time.time()) returns the same value at the same moment.
Here is some sample output I ran on my computer, converting it to a string as well.
>>> import time
>>> ts = time.time()
>>> ts
1355563265.81
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(ts).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
'2012-12-15 01:21:05'
>>>
The ts variable is the time returned in seconds. I then converted it to a human-readable string using the datetime library.
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The time.time() function returns the number of seconds since the epoch, as a float. Note that “the epoch” is defined as the start of January 1st, 1970 in UTC. So the epoch is defined in terms of UTC and establishes a global moment in time. No matter where on Earth you are, “seconds past epoch” (time.time()) returns the same value at the same moment.
Here is some sample output I ran on my computer, converting it to a string as well.
>>> import time
>>> ts = time.time()
>>> ts
1355563265.81
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(ts).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
'2012-12-15 01:21:05'
>>>
The ts variable is the time returned in seconds. I then converted it to a human-readable string using the datetime library.
This is for the text form of a timestamp that can be used in your text files. (The title of the question was different in the past, so the introduction to this answer was changed to clarify how it could be interpreted as the time. [updated 2016-01-14])
You can get the timestamp as a string using the .now() or .utcnow() of the datetime.datetime:
>>> import datetime
>>> print datetime.datetime.utcnow()
2012-12-15 10:14:51.898000
The now differs from utcnow as expected -- otherwise they work the same way:
>>> print datetime.datetime.now()
2012-12-15 11:15:09.205000
You can render the timestamp to the string explicitly:
>>> str(datetime.datetime.now())
'2012-12-15 11:15:24.984000'
Or you can be even more explicit to format the timestamp the way you like:
>>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%A, %d. %B %Y %I:%M%p")
'Saturday, 15. December 2012 11:19AM'
If you want the ISO format, use the .isoformat() method of the object:
>>> datetime.datetime.now().isoformat()
'2013-11-18T08:18:31.809000'
You can use these in variables for calculations and printing without conversions.
>>> ts = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> tf = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> te = tf - ts
>>> print ts
2015-04-21 12:02:19.209915
>>> print tf
2015-04-21 12:02:30.449895
>>> print te
0:00:11.239980
Ultimately you want to review the datetime documentation and become familiar with the formatting variables, but here are some examples to get you started:
import datetime
print('Timestamp: {:%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}'.format(datetime.datetime.now()))
print('Timestamp: {:%Y-%b-%d %H:%M:%S}'.format(datetime.datetime.now()))
print('Date now: %s' % datetime.datetime.now())
print('Date today: %s' % datetime.date.today())
today = datetime.date.today()
print("Today's date is {:%b, %d %Y}".format(today))
schedule = '{:%b, %d %Y}'.format(today) + ' - 6 PM to 10 PM Pacific'
schedule2 = '{:%B, %d %Y}'.format(today) + ' - 1 PM to 6 PM Central'
print('Maintenance: %s' % schedule)
print('Maintenance: %s' % schedule2)
The output:
Timestamp: 2014-10-18 21:31:12
Timestamp: 2014-Oct-18 21:31:12
Date now: 2014-10-18 21:31:12.318340
Date today: 2014-10-18
Today's date is Oct, 18 2014
Maintenance: Oct, 18 2014 - 6 PM to 10 PM Pacific
Maintenance: October, 18 2014 - 1 PM to 6 PM Central
Reference link: https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/datetime.html#strftime-strptime-behavior
>>> import time
>>> print(time.strftime('%a %H:%M:%S'))
Mon 06:23:14