[Python-Dev] proposal: add basic time type to the standard library (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Tue, 26 Feb 2002 16:37:31 -0500

[me]

> I wonder how often this is needed. The only occurrences of year() in > the entire Zope source that I found are in various test routines.

[Jim]

These methods and others are used a lot in presentation code, which tends to be expressed in DTML or ZPT.

It's not uncommon to select/catagorize things by year or month. I think most people would find individual date-part methods a lot more natural than tuples.

OK, that explains a lot. For this context I agree, although I think they should probably appear as (computed) attributes rather than methods. Properties seem perfect.

> I imagine > that once we change strftime() to accept an abstract time object, > you'll never need to call either timetuple() or year() -- strftime() > will do it for you.

Maybe, if I use strftime, but I don't use strftime all that much.

Maybe you should. :-)

I can certainly think of even formatting cases (e.g. internationalized dates) where it's not adequate.

Then a super-strftime() should be invented that is enough, rather than fumbling with hand-coded solutions.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)