[Python-Dev] Store timestamps as decimal.Decimal objects (original) (raw)

Alexander Belopolsky alexander.belopolsky at gmail.com
Tue Jan 31 19:57:49 CET 2012

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 6:31 PM, Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at haypocalc.com> wrote:

Alexander Belopolsky proposed to use time.time(format=datetime.datetime) instead.

Just to make sure my view is fully expressed: I am against adding flag arguments to time.time(). My preferred solution to exposing high resolution clocks is to do it in a separate module. You can even call the new function time() and access it as hirestime.time(). Longer names that reflect various time representation are also an option: hirestime.decimal_time(), hirestime.datetime_time() etc.

The suggestion to use the actual type as a flag was motivated by the desire to require module import before fancy time.time() can be called. When you care about nanoseconds in your time stamps you won't tolerate an I/O delay between calling time() and getting the result. A separate module can solve this issue much better: simply import decimal or datetime or both at the top of the module.

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