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I would like to convert string date format to timestamp with microseconds
I try the following but not giving expected result:
"""input string date -> 2014-08-01 04:41:52,117
expected result -> 1410748201.117"""
import time
import datetime
myDate = "2014-08-01 04:41:52,117"
timestamp = time.mktime(datetime.datetime.strptime(myDate, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S,%f").timetuple())
print timestamp
> 1410748201.0
Where did the milliseconds go?
There is no slot for the microseconds component in a time tuple:
>>> import time
>>> import datetime
>>> myDate = "2014-08-01 04:41:52,117"
>>> datetime.datetime.strptime(myDate, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S,%f").timetuple()
time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=4, tm_min=41, tm_sec=52, tm_wday=4, tm_yday=213, tm_isdst=-1)
You'll have to add those manually:
>>> dt = datetime.datetime.strptime(myDate, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S,%f")
>>> time.mktime(dt.timetuple()) + (dt.microsecond / 1000000.0)
1406864512.117
The other method you could follow is to produce a timedelta() object relative to the epoch, then get the timestamp with the timedelta.total_seconds() method:
epoch = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(0)
(dt - epoch).total_seconds()
The use of a local time epoch is quite deliberate since you have a naive (not timezone-aware) datetime value. This method can be inaccurate based on the history of your local timezone however, see J.F. Sebastian's comment. You'd have to convert the naive datetime value to a timezone-aware datetime value first using your local timezone before subtracting a timezone-aware epoch.
As such, it is easier to stick to the timetuple() + microseconds approach.
Demo:
>>> dt = datetime.datetime.strptime(myDate, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S,%f")
>>> epoch = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(0)
>>> (dt - epoch).total_seconds()
1406864512.117
In Python 3.4 and later you can use
timestamp = datetime.datetime.strptime(myDate, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S,%f").timestamp()
This doesn't require importing the time module. It also uses less steps so it should be faster. For older versions of python the other provided answers are probably your best option.
However, the resulting timestamp will interpret myDate in local time, rather than UTC, which may cause issues if myDate was given in UTC
Where did the milliseconds go?
It is the easy part. .timetuple() call drops them. You could add them back using .microsecond attribute. The datetime.timestamp() method from the standard library works that way for naive datetime objects:
def timestamp(self):
"Return POSIX timestamp as float"
if self._tzinfo is None:
return _time.mktime((self.year, self.month, self.day,
self.hour, self.minute, self.second,
-1, -1, -1)) + self.microsecond / 1e6
else:
return (self - _EPOCH).total_seconds()
It is enough if possible ~1 hour errors could be ignored in your case. I assume that you want microseconds and therefore you can't ignore ~1 hour time errors silently.
To convert the local time given as a string to the POSIX timestamp correctly is a complex task in general. You could convert the local time to UTC and then get the timestamp from UTC time.
There are two main issues:
local time may be non-existent or ambiguous e.g. during DST transitions the same time may occur twice
UTC offset for the local timezone may be different in the past and therefore a naive: local time minus epoch in local time formula may fail
Both can be solved using the tz database (pytz module in Python):
from datetime import datetime
import pytz # $ pip install pytz
from tzlocal import get_localzone # $ pip install tzlocal
tz = get_localzone() # get pytz timezone corresponding to the local timezone
naive_d = datetime.strptime(myDate, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S,%f")
# a) raise exception for non-existent or ambiguous times
d = tz.localize(naive_d, is_dst=None)
## b) assume standard time, adjust non-existent times
#d = tz.normalize(tz.localize(naive_d, is_dst=False))
## c) assume DST is in effect, adjust non-existent times
#d = tz.normalize(tz.localize(naive_d, is_dst=True))
timestamp = d - datetime(1970, 1, 1, tzinfo=pytz.utc)
The result is timestamp -- a timedelta object, you can convert it to seconds, milliseconds, etc.
Also different systems may behave differently around/during leap seconds. Most application can ignore that they exist.
In general, it might be simpler to store POSIX timestamps in addition to the local time instead of trying to guess it from the local time.
I have dt = datetime(2013,9,1,11), and I would like to get a Unix timestamp of this datetime object.
When I do (dt - datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds() I got the timestamp 1378033200.
When converting it back using datetime.fromtimestamp I got datetime.datetime(2013, 9, 1, 6, 0).
The hour doesn't match. What did I miss here?
solution is
import time
import datetime
d = datetime.date(2015,1,5)
unixtime = time.mktime(d.timetuple())
If you want to convert a python datetime to seconds since epoch you should do it explicitly:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime(2012, 04, 01, 0, 0).strftime('%s')
'1333234800'
>>> (datetime.datetime(2012, 04, 01, 0, 0) - datetime.datetime(1970, 1, 1)).total_seconds()
1333238400.0
In Python 3.3+ you can use timestamp() instead:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime(2012, 4, 1, 0, 0).timestamp()
1333234800.0
What you missed here is timezones.
Presumably you've five hours off UTC, so 2013-09-01T11:00:00 local and 2013-09-01T06:00:00Z are the same time.
You need to read the top of the datetime docs, which explain about timezones and "naive" and "aware" objects.
If your original naive datetime was UTC, the way to recover it is to use utcfromtimestamp instead of fromtimestamp.
On the other hand, if your original naive datetime was local, you shouldn't have subtracted a UTC timestamp from it in the first place; use datetime.fromtimestamp(0) instead.
Or, if you had an aware datetime object, you need to either use a local (aware) epoch on both sides, or explicitly convert to and from UTC.
If you have, or can upgrade to, Python 3.3 or later, you can avoid all of these problems by just using the timestamp method instead of trying to figure out how to do it yourself. And even if you don't, you may want to consider borrowing its source code.
(And if you can wait for Python 3.4, it looks like PEP 341 is likely to make it into the final release, which means all of the stuff J.F. Sebastian and I were talking about in the comments should be doable with just the stdlib, and working the same way on both Unix and Windows.)
Rather than this expression to create a POSIX timestamp from dt,
(dt - datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds()
Use this:
int(dt.strftime("%s"))
I get the right answer in your example using the second method.
EDIT: Some followup... After some comments (see below), I was curious about the lack of support or documentation for %s in strftime. Here's what I found:
In the Python source for datetime and time, the string STRFTIME_FORMAT_CODES tells us:
"Other codes may be available on your platform.
See documentation for the C library strftime function."
So now if we man strftime (on BSD systems such as Mac OS X), you'll find support for %s:
"%s is replaced by the number of seconds since the Epoch, UTC (see mktime(3))."
Anyways, that's why %s works on the systems it does. But there are better solutions to OP's problem (that take timezones into account). See #abarnert's accepted answer here.
For working with UTC timezones:
time_stamp = calendar.timegm(dt.timetuple())
datetime.utcfromtimestamp(time_stamp)
You've missed the time zone info (already answered, agreed)
arrow package allows to avoid this torture with datetimes; It is already written, tested, pypi-published, cross-python (2.6 — 3.xx).
All you need: pip install arrow (or add to dependencies)
Solution for your case
dt = datetime(2013,9,1,11)
arrow.get(dt).timestamp
# >>> 1378033200
bc = arrow.get(1378033200).datetime
print(bc)
# >>> datetime.datetime(2013, 9, 1, 11, 0, tzinfo=tzutc())
print(bc.isoformat())
# >>> '2013-09-01T11:00:00+00:00'
If your datetime object represents UTC time, don't use time.mktime, as it assumes the tuple is in your local timezone. Instead, use calendar.timegm:
>>> import datetime, calendar
>>> d = datetime.datetime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0)
>>> calendar.timegm(d.timetuple())
60
def dt2ts(dt, utc=False):
if utc:
return calendar.timegm(dt.timetuple())
if dt.tzinfo is None:
return int(time.mktime(dt.timetuple()))
utc_dt = dt.astimezone(tz.tzutc()).timetuple()
return calendar.timegm(utc_dt)
If you want UTC timestamp :time.mktime just for local dt .Use calendar.timegm is safe but dt must the utc zone so change the zone to utc. If dt in UTC just use calendar.timegm.
def datetime_to_epoch(d1):
"""
January 1st, 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC is referred to as the Unix epoch
:param d1: input date
:return: seconds since unix epoch
"""
if not d1.tzinfo:
raise ValueError("date is missing timezone information")
d2 = datetime(1970, 1, 1, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
time_delta = d1 - d2
ts = int(time_delta.total_seconds())
return ts
def epoch_to_datetime_string(timestamp, tz_name="UTC", **kwargs):
"""
method to convert unix timestamp to date time string
:param ts: 10 digit unix timestamp in seconds
:param tz_name: timezone name
:param kwargs: formatter=<formatter-string>
:return: date time string in timezone
"""
naive_date = datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp)
aware_date = naive_date.astimezone(pytz.timezone(tz_name))
formatter = kwargs.pop("formatter", "%d %b %Y %H:%M:%S")
return aware_date.strftime(formatter)
Well, when converting TO unix timestamp, python is basically assuming UTC, but while converting back it will give you a date converted to your local timezone.
See this question/answer;
Get timezone used by datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp()
This class will cover your needs, you can pass the variable into ConvertUnixToDatetime & call which function you want it to operate based off.
from datetime import datetime
import time
class ConvertUnixToDatetime:
def __init__(self, date):
self.date = date
# Convert unix to date object
def convert_unix(self):
unix = self.date
# Check if unix is a string or int & proceeds with correct conversion
if type(unix).__name__ == 'str':
unix = int(unix[0:10])
else:
unix = int(str(unix)[0:10])
date = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(unix).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
return date
# Convert date to unix object
def convert_date(self):
date = self.date
# Check if datetime object or raise ValueError
if type(date).__name__ == 'datetime':
unixtime = int(time.mktime(date.timetuple()))
else:
raise ValueError('You are trying to pass a None Datetime object')
return type(unixtime).__name__, unixtime
if __name__ == '__main__':
# Test Date
date_test = ConvertUnixToDatetime(datetime.today())
date_test = date_test.convert_date()
print(date_test)
# Test Unix
unix_test = ConvertUnixToDatetime(date_test[1])
print(unix_test.convert_unix())
import time
from datetime import datetime
time.mktime(datetime.now().timetuple())
Does time.time() in the Python time module return the system's time or the time in UTC?
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
Based on the answer from #squiguy, to get a true timestamp I would type cast it from float.
>>> import time
>>> ts = int(time.time())
>>> print(ts)
1389177318
At least that's the concept.
The answer could be neither or both.
neither: time.time() returns approximately the number of seconds elapsed since the Epoch. The result doesn't depend on timezone so it is neither UTC nor local time. Here's POSIX defintion for "Seconds Since the Epoch".
both: time.time() doesn't require your system's clock to be synchronized so it reflects its value (though it has nothing to do with local timezone). Different computers may get different results at the same time. On the other hand if your computer time is synchronized then it is easy to get UTC time from the timestamp (if we ignore leap seconds):
from datetime import datetime
utc_dt = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(timestamp)
On how to get timestamps from UTC time in various Python versions, see How can I get a date converted to seconds since epoch according to UTC?
To get a local timestamp using datetime library, Python 3.x
#wanted format: year-month-day hour:minute:seconds
from datetime import datetime
# get time now
dt = datetime.now()
# format it to a string
timeStamp = dt.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
# print it to screen
print(timeStamp)
I eventually settled for:
>>> import time
>>> time.mktime(time.gmtime())
1509467455.0
There is no such thing as an "epoch" in a specific timezone. The epoch is well-defined as a specific moment in time, so if you change the timezone, the time itself changes as well. Specifically, this time is Jan 1 1970 00:00:00 UTC. So time.time() returns the number of seconds since the epoch.
timestamp is always time in utc, but when you call datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp it returns you time in your local timezone corresponding to this timestamp, so result depend of your locale.
>>> import time, datetime
>>> time.time()
1564494136.0434234
>>> datetime.datetime.now()
datetime.datetime(2019, 7, 30, 16, 42, 3, 899179)
>>> datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.time())
datetime.datetime(2019, 7, 30, 16, 43, 12, 4610)
There exist nice library arrow with different behaviour. In same case it returns you time object with UTC timezone.
>>> import arrow
>>> arrow.now()
<Arrow [2019-07-30T16:43:27.868760+03:00]>
>>> arrow.get(time.time())
<Arrow [2019-07-30T13:43:56.565342+00:00]>
time.time() return the unix timestamp.
you could use datetime library to get local time or UTC time.
import datetime
local_time = datetime.datetime.now()
print(local_time.strftime('%Y%m%d %H%M%S'))
utc_time = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
print(utc_time.strftime('%Y%m%d %H%M%S'))
I know how to do it in C and Java, but I don't know a quick way of converting year/month/day/hour/min/second to the # of seconds since the Jan 1 1970 epoch.
Can someone help me?
So far I've figured out how to create a datetime object but I can't seem to get the elapsed # seconds since the epoch.
(edit: my question is the inverse of this other one: Python: Seconds since epoch to relative date)
Use timetuple or utctimetuple method to get time tuple and convert it to timestamp using time.mktime
>>> import datetime
>>> dt = datetime.datetime(2011, 12, 13, 10, 23)
>>> import time
>>> time.mktime(dt.timetuple())
1323793380.0
There is a nice bug related to it http://bugs.python.org/issue2736, this is interesting read and anybody trying to convert to timestamp should read this. According to that thread correct way is
timestamp = (dt - datetime(1970, 1, 1)) / timedelta(seconds=1)
You can use datetime.datetime(1970, 1, 1) as a reference and get the total amount of seconds from a datetime.timedelta object as follows:
from datetime import datetime
delta = your_date - datetime(1970, 1, 1)
delta.total_seconds()
import calendar
calendar.timegm(datetime_object.utctimetuple())
These lines can return a float number representing seconds since epoch.
import time
time.time()
To convert a datetime object (broken-downtime time: year/month/day/hour/min/second) to seconds since the Epoch (POSIX time):
seconds_since_epoch = datetime_object.timestamp()
Note: POSIX Epoch is "00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970".
If datetime_object has no timezone info then .timestamp() method uses a local timezone.
datetime.timestamp() method is introduced in Python 3.3; for code that works on older Python versions, see Converting datetime.date to UTC timestamp in Python.
I have a string representing a unix timestamp (i.e. "1284101485") in Python, and I'd like to convert it to a readable date. When I use time.strftime, I get a TypeError:
>>>import time
>>>print time.strftime("%B %d %Y", "1284101485")
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: argument must be 9-item sequence, not str
Use datetime module:
from datetime import datetime
ts = int('1284101485')
# if you encounter a "year is out of range" error the timestamp
# may be in milliseconds, try `ts /= 1000` in that case
print(datetime.utcfromtimestamp(ts).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.fromtimestamp(1172969203.1)
datetime.datetime(2007, 3, 4, 0, 46, 43, 100000)
Taken from http://seehuhn.de/pages/pdate
The most voted answer suggests using fromtimestamp which is error prone since it uses the local timezone. To avoid issues a better approach is to use UTC:
datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(posix_time).strftime('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')
Where posix_time is the Posix epoch time you want to convert
>>> import time
>>> time.ctime(int("1284101485"))
'Fri Sep 10 16:51:25 2010'
>>> time.strftime("%D %H:%M", time.localtime(int("1284101485")))
'09/10/10 16:51'
There are two parts:
Convert the unix timestamp ("seconds since epoch") to the local time
Display the local time in the desired format.
A portable way to get the local time that works even if the local time zone had a different utc offset in the past and python has no access to the tz database is to use a pytz timezone:
#!/usr/bin/env python
from datetime import datetime
import tzlocal # $ pip install tzlocal
unix_timestamp = float("1284101485")
local_timezone = tzlocal.get_localzone() # get pytz timezone
local_time = datetime.fromtimestamp(unix_timestamp, local_timezone)
To display it, you could use any time format that is supported by your system e.g.:
print(local_time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f%z (%Z)"))
print(local_time.strftime("%B %d %Y")) # print date in your format
If you do not need a local time, to get a readable UTC time instead:
utc_time = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(unix_timestamp)
print(utc_time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f+00:00 (UTC)"))
If you don't care about the timezone issues that might affect what date is returned or if python has access to the tz database on your system:
local_time = datetime.fromtimestamp(unix_timestamp)
print(local_time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f"))
On Python 3, you could get a timezone-aware datetime using only stdlib (the UTC offset may be wrong if python has no access to the tz database on your system e.g., on Windows):
#!/usr/bin/env python3
from datetime import datetime, timezone
utc_time = datetime.fromtimestamp(unix_timestamp, timezone.utc)
local_time = utc_time.astimezone()
print(local_time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f%z (%Z)"))
Functions from the time module are thin wrappers around the corresponding C API and therefore they may be less portable than the corresponding datetime methods otherwise you could use them too:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import time
unix_timestamp = int("1284101485")
utc_time = time.gmtime(unix_timestamp)
local_time = time.localtime(unix_timestamp)
print(time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", local_time))
print(time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S+00:00 (UTC)", utc_time))
In Python 3.6+:
import datetime
timestamp = 1642445213
value = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp)
print(f"{value:%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}")
Output (local time)
2022-01-17 20:46:53
Explanation
Line #1: Import datetime library.
Line #2: Unix time which is seconds since 1970-01-01.
Line #3: Converts this to a unix time object, check with: type(value)
Line #4: Prints in the same format as strp. Local time. To print in UTC see example below.
Bonus
To save the date to a string then print it, use this:
my_date = f"{value:%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}"
print(my_date)
To output in UTC:
value = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, tz=datetime.timezone.utc)
# 2022-01-17 18:50:52
Other than using time/datetime package, pandas can also be used to solve the same problem.Here is how we can use pandas to convert timestamp to readable date:
Timestamps can be in two formats:
13 digits(milliseconds) -
To convert milliseconds to date, use:
import pandas
result_ms=pandas.to_datetime('1493530261000',unit='ms')
str(result_ms)
Output: '2017-04-30 05:31:01'
10 digits(seconds) -
To convert seconds to date, use:
import pandas
result_s=pandas.to_datetime('1493530261',unit='s')
str(result_s)
Output: '2017-04-30 05:31:01'
For a human readable timestamp from a UNIX timestamp, I have used this in scripts before:
import os, datetime
datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(float(os.path.getmtime("FILE"))).strftime("%B %d, %Y")
Output:
'December 26, 2012'
You can convert the current time like this
t=datetime.fromtimestamp(time.time())
t.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')
'2012-03-07'
To convert a date in string to different formats.
import datetime,time
def createDateObject(str_date,strFormat="%Y-%m-%d"):
timeStamp = time.mktime(time.strptime(str_date,strFormat))
return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(timeStamp)
def FormatDate(objectDate,strFormat="%Y-%m-%d"):
return objectDate.strftime(strFormat)
Usage
=====
o=createDateObject('2013-03-03')
print FormatDate(o,'%d-%m-%Y')
Output 03-03-2013
timestamp ="124542124"
value = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp)
exct_time = value.strftime('%d %B %Y %H:%M:%S')
Get the readable date from timestamp with time also, also you can change the format of the date.
Note that utcfromtimestamp can lead to unexpected results since it returns a naive datetime object. Python treats naive datetime as local time - while UNIX time refers to UTC.
This ambiguity can be avoided by setting the tz argument in fromtimestamp:
from datetime import datetime, timezone
dtobj = datetime.fromtimestamp(1284101485, timezone.utc)
>>> print(repr(dtobj))
datetime.datetime(2010, 9, 10, 6, 51, 25, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
Now you can format to string, e.g. an ISO8601 compliant format:
>>> print(dtobj.isoformat(timespec='milliseconds').replace('+00:00', 'Z'))
2010-09-10T06:51:25.000Z
Use the following codes, I hope it will solve your problem.
import datetime as dt
print(dt.datetime.fromtimestamp(int("1284101485")).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
Use datetime.strftime(format):
from datetime import datetime
unixtime = int('1284101485')
# Print with local time
print(datetime.fromtimestamp(unixtime).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
# Print with UTC time
print(datetime.utcfromtimestamp(unixtime).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp): Return the local date corresponding to the POSIX timestamp, such as is returned by time.time().
datetime.utcfromtimestamp(timestamp): Return the UTC datetime corresponding to the POSIX timestamp, with tzinfo None. (The resulting object is naive.)
import datetime
temp = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(1386181800).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
print temp
Another way that this can be done using gmtime and format function;
from time import gmtime
print('{}-{}-{} {}:{}:{}'.format(*gmtime(1538654264.703337)))
Output: 2018-10-4 11:57:44
If you are working with a dataframe and do not want the series cannot be converted to class int error. Use the code below.
new_df= pd.to_datetime(df_new['time'], unit='s')
i just successfully used:
>>> type(tstamp)
pandas.tslib.Timestamp
>>> newDt = tstamp.date()
>>> type(newDt)
datetime.date
You can use easy_date to make it easy:
import date_converter
my_date_string = date_converter.timestamp_to_string(1284101485, "%B %d, %Y")
quick and dirty one liner:
'-'.join(str(x) for x in list(tuple(datetime.datetime.now().timetuple())[:6]))
'2013-5-5-1-9-43'