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

Jim Fulton jim@zope.com
Tue, 26 Feb 2002 16:50:21 -0500

Guido van Rossum wrote:

[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.

That's fine with me.

> > 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 do when I can. But it often doesn't meet my needs.

> 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.

I think we don't need a one-size-fits-all all-powerful date-time formating solution. ;)

Jim

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