Python - datetime Formatting

Formatting datetime in Python can be a 'pain'.

Formatting works in two directions

- From a string to datetime.

- From a datetime to string.

The easiest way to remember how things work using the strptime and strftime is that:

strptime (string)(parse)(time)

strftime (string)(format)(time)

Format a datetime to a string

from datetime import datetime

print(datetime.today().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))

2020-07-22 10:07:16

Parse a String to datetime

from datetime import datetime

date_time = '2020-07-22 10:07:16'
dt_object = datetime.strptime(date_time, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')