kbe/src/lib/python/Doc/library/time.rst
time --- Time access and conversions.. module:: time :synopsis: Time access and conversions.
This module provides various time-related functions. For related
functionality, see also the :mod:datetime and :mod:calendar modules.
Although this module is always available, not all functions are available on all platforms. Most of the functions defined in this module call platform C library functions with the same name. It may sometimes be helpful to consult the platform documentation, because the semantics of these functions varies among platforms.
An explanation of some terminology and conventions is in order.
.. _epoch:
.. index:: single: epoch
epoch is the point where the time starts, and is platform
dependent. For Unix, the epoch is January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 (UTC).
To find out what the epoch is on a given platform, look at
time.gmtime(0)... _leap seconds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
.. index:: seconds since the epoch
seconds since the epoch refers to the total number
of elapsed seconds since the epoch, typically excluding
leap seconds_. Leap seconds are excluded from this total on all
POSIX-compliant platforms... index:: single: Year 2038
.. index:: single: Year 2000 single: Y2K
.. _time-y2kissues:
strptime
can parse 2-digit years when given %y format code. When 2-digit years are
parsed, they are converted according to the POSIX and ISO C standards: values
69--99 are mapped to 1969--1999, and values 0--68 are mapped to 2000--2068... index:: single: UTC single: Coordinated Universal Time single: Greenwich Mean Time
.. index:: single: Daylight Saving Time
DST is Daylight Saving Time, an adjustment of the timezone by (usually) one hour during part of the year. DST rules are magic (determined by local law) and can change from year to year. The C library has a table containing the local rules (often it is read from a system file for flexibility) and is the only source of True Wisdom in this respect.
The precision of the various real-time functions may be less than suggested by the units in which their value or argument is expressed. E.g. on most Unix systems, the clock "ticks" only 50 or 100 times a second.
On the other hand, the precision of :func:.time and :func:sleep is better
than their Unix equivalents: times are expressed as floating point numbers,
:func:.time returns the most accurate time available (using Unix
:c:func:gettimeofday where available), and :func:sleep will accept a time
with a nonzero fraction (Unix :c:func:select is used to implement this, where
available).
The time value as returned by :func:gmtime, :func:localtime, and
:func:strptime, and accepted by :func:asctime, :func:mktime and
:func:strftime, is a sequence of 9 integers. The return values of
:func:gmtime, :func:localtime, and :func:strptime also offer attribute
names for individual fields.
See :class:struct_time for a description of these objects.
.. versionchanged:: 3.3
The :class:struct_time type was extended to provide the :attr:tm_gmtoff
and :attr:tm_zone attributes when platform supports corresponding
struct tm members.
.. versionchanged:: 3.6
The :class:struct_time attributes :attr:tm_gmtoff and :attr:tm_zone
are now available on all platforms.
Use the following functions to convert between time representations:
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| From | To | Use |
+=========================+=========================+=========================+
| seconds since the epoch | :class:struct_time in | :func:gmtime |
| | UTC | |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| seconds since the epoch | :class:struct_time in | :func:localtime |
| | local time | |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| :class:struct_time in | seconds since the epoch | :func:calendar.timegm |
| UTC | | |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| :class:struct_time in | seconds since the epoch | :func:mktime |
| local time | | |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
.. _time-functions:
.. function:: asctime([t])
Convert a tuple or :class:struct_time representing a time as returned by
:func:gmtime or :func:localtime to a string of the following
form: 'Sun Jun 20 23:21:05 1993'. If t is not provided, the current time
as returned by :func:localtime is used. Locale information is not used by
:func:asctime.
.. note::
Unlike the C function of the same name, :func:`asctime` does not add a
trailing newline.
.. function:: clock()
.. index:: single: CPU time single: processor time single: benchmarking
On Unix, return the current processor time as a floating point number expressed in seconds. The precision, and in fact the very definition of the meaning of "processor time", depends on that of the C function of the same name.
On Windows, this function returns wall-clock seconds elapsed since the first
call to this function, as a floating point number, based on the Win32 function
:c:func:QueryPerformanceCounter. The resolution is typically better than one
microsecond.
.. deprecated:: 3.3
The behaviour of this function depends on the platform: use
:func:perf_counter or :func:process_time instead, depending on your
requirements, to have a well defined behaviour.
.. function:: pthread_getcpuclockid(thread_id)
Return the clk_id of the thread-specific CPU-time clock for the specified thread_id.
Use :func:threading.get_ident or the :attr:~threading.Thread.ident
attribute of :class:threading.Thread objects to get a suitable value
for thread_id.
.. warning:: Passing an invalid or expired thread_id may result in undefined behavior, such as segmentation fault.
.. availability:: Unix (see the man page for :manpage:pthread_getcpuclockid(3) for
further information).
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: clock_getres(clk_id)
Return the resolution (precision) of the specified clock clk_id. Refer to
:ref:time-clock-id-constants for a list of accepted values for clk_id.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. function:: clock_gettime(clk_id) -> float
Return the time of the specified clock clk_id. Refer to
:ref:time-clock-id-constants for a list of accepted values for clk_id.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. function:: clock_gettime_ns(clk_id) -> int
Similar to :func:clock_gettime but return time as nanoseconds.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: clock_settime(clk_id, time: float)
Set the time of the specified clock clk_id. Currently,
:data:CLOCK_REALTIME is the only accepted value for clk_id.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. function:: clock_settime_ns(clk_id, time: int)
Similar to :func:clock_settime but set time with nanoseconds.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: ctime([secs])
Convert a time expressed in seconds since the epoch to a string representing
local time. If secs is not provided or :const:None, the current time as
returned by :func:.time is used. ctime(secs) is equivalent to
asctime(localtime(secs)). Locale information is not used by :func:ctime.
.. function:: get_clock_info(name)
Get information on the specified clock as a namespace object. Supported clock names and the corresponding functions to read their value are:
'clock': :func:time.clock'monotonic': :func:time.monotonic'perf_counter': :func:time.perf_counter'process_time': :func:time.process_time'thread_time': :func:time.thread_time'time': :func:time.timeThe result has the following attributes:
True if the clock can be changed automatically (e.g. by
a NTP daemon) or manually by the system administrator, False otherwisetime-clock-id-constants for possible values.True if the clock cannot go backward,
False otherwisefloat).. versionadded:: 3.3
.. function:: gmtime([secs])
Convert a time expressed in seconds since the epoch to a :class:struct_time in
UTC in which the dst flag is always zero. If secs is not provided or
:const:None, the current time as returned by :func:.time is used. Fractions
of a second are ignored. See above for a description of the
:class:struct_time object. See :func:calendar.timegm for the inverse of this
function.
.. function:: localtime([secs])
Like :func:gmtime but converts to local time. If secs is not provided or
:const:None, the current time as returned by :func:.time is used. The dst
flag is set to 1 when DST applies to the given time.
.. function:: mktime(t)
This is the inverse function of :func:localtime. Its argument is the
:class:struct_time or full 9-tuple (since the dst flag is needed; use -1
as the dst flag if it is unknown) which expresses the time in local time, not
UTC. It returns a floating point number, for compatibility with :func:.time.
If the input value cannot be represented as a valid time, either
:exc:OverflowError or :exc:ValueError will be raised (which depends on
whether the invalid value is caught by Python or the underlying C libraries).
The earliest date for which it can generate a time is platform-dependent.
.. function:: monotonic() -> float
Return the value (in fractional seconds) of a monotonic clock, i.e. a clock that cannot go backwards. The clock is not affected by system clock updates. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of consecutive calls is valid.
.. versionadded:: 3.3 .. versionchanged:: 3.5 The function is now always available and always system-wide.
.. function:: monotonic_ns() -> int
Similar to :func:monotonic, but return time as nanoseconds.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: perf_counter() -> float
.. index:: single: benchmarking
Return the value (in fractional seconds) of a performance counter, i.e. a clock with the highest available resolution to measure a short duration. It does include time elapsed during sleep and is system-wide. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of consecutive calls is valid.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. function:: perf_counter_ns() -> int
Similar to :func:perf_counter, but return time as nanoseconds.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: process_time() -> float
.. index:: single: CPU time single: processor time single: benchmarking
Return the value (in fractional seconds) of the sum of the system and user CPU time of the current process. It does not include time elapsed during sleep. It is process-wide by definition. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of consecutive calls is valid.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. function:: process_time_ns() -> int
Similar to :func:process_time but return time as nanoseconds.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: sleep(secs)
Suspend execution of the calling thread for the given number of seconds.
The argument may be a floating point number to indicate a more precise sleep
time. The actual suspension time may be less than that requested because any
caught signal will terminate the :func:sleep following execution of that
signal's catching routine. Also, the suspension time may be longer than
requested by an arbitrary amount because of the scheduling of other activity
in the system.
.. versionchanged:: 3.5
The function now sleeps at least secs even if the sleep is interrupted
by a signal, except if the signal handler raises an exception (see
:pep:475 for the rationale).
.. index:: single: % (percent); datetime format
.. function:: strftime(format[, t])
Convert a tuple or :class:struct_time representing a time as returned by
:func:gmtime or :func:localtime to a string as specified by the format
argument. If t is not provided, the current time as returned by
:func:localtime is used. format must be a string. :exc:ValueError is
raised if any field in t is outside of the allowed range.
0 is a legal argument for any position in the time tuple; if it is normally illegal the value is forced to a correct one.
The following directives can be embedded in the format string. They are shown
without the optional field width and precision specification, and are replaced
by the indicated characters in the :func:strftime result:
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| Directive | Meaning | Notes |
+===========+================================================+=======+
| %a | Locale's abbreviated weekday name. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %A | Locale's full weekday name. | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %b | Locale's abbreviated month name. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %B | Locale's full month name. | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %c | Locale's appropriate date and time | |
| | representation. | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %d | Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31]. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %H | Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number | |
| | [00,23]. | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %I | Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number | |
| | [01,12]. | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %j | Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366]. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %m | Month as a decimal number [01,12]. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %M | Minute as a decimal number [00,59]. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %p | Locale's equivalent of either AM or PM. | (1) |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %S | Second as a decimal number [00,61]. | (2) |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %U | Week number of the year (Sunday as the first | (3) |
| | day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. | |
| | All days in a new year preceding the first | |
| | Sunday are considered to be in week 0. | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %w | Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6]. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %W | Week number of the year (Monday as the first | (3) |
| | day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. | |
| | All days in a new year preceding the first | |
| | Monday are considered to be in week 0. | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %x | Locale's appropriate date representation. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %X | Locale's appropriate time representation. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %y | Year without century as a decimal number | |
| | [00,99]. | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %Y | Year with century as a decimal number. | |
| | | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %z | Time zone offset indicating a positive or | |
| | negative time difference from UTC/GMT of the | |
| | form +HHMM or -HHMM, where H represents decimal| |
| | hour digits and M represents decimal minute | |
| | digits [-23:59, +23:59]. | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %Z | Time zone name (no characters if no time zone | |
| | exists). | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
| %% | A literal '%' character. | |
+-----------+------------------------------------------------+-------+
Notes:
(1)
When used with the :func:strptime function, the %p directive only affects
the output hour field if the %I directive is used to parse the hour.
(2)
The range really is 0 to 61; value 60 is valid in
timestamps representing leap seconds_ and value 61 is supported
for historical reasons.
(3)
When used with the :func:strptime function, %U and %W are only used in
calculations when the day of the week and the year are specified.
Here is an example, a format for dates compatible with that specified in the
:rfc:2822 Internet email standard. [#]_ ::
>>> from time import gmtime, strftime
>>> strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S +0000", gmtime())
'Thu, 28 Jun 2001 14:17:15 +0000'
Additional directives may be supported on certain platforms, but only the
ones listed here have a meaning standardized by ANSI C. To see the full set
of format codes supported on your platform, consult the :manpage:strftime(3)
documentation.
On some platforms, an optional field width and precision specification can
immediately follow the initial '%' of a directive in the following order;
this is also not portable. The field width is normally 2 except for %j where
it is 3.
.. index:: single: % (percent); datetime format
.. function:: strptime(string[, format])
Parse a string representing a time according to a format. The return value
is a :class:struct_time as returned by :func:gmtime or
:func:localtime.
The format parameter uses the same directives as those used by
:func:strftime; it defaults to "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y" which matches the
formatting returned by :func:ctime. If string cannot be parsed according
to format, or if it has excess data after parsing, :exc:ValueError is
raised. The default values used to fill in any missing data when more
accurate values cannot be inferred are (1900, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, -1).
Both string and format must be strings.
For example:
>>> import time
>>> time.strptime("30 Nov 00", "%d %b %y") # doctest: +NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE
time.struct_time(tm_year=2000, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0,
tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=335, tm_isdst=-1)
Support for the %Z directive is based on the values contained in tzname
and whether daylight is true. Because of this, it is platform-specific
except for recognizing UTC and GMT which are always known (and are considered to
be non-daylight savings timezones).
Only the directives specified in the documentation are supported. Because
strftime() is implemented per platform it can sometimes offer more
directives than those listed. But strptime() is independent of any platform
and thus does not necessarily support all directives available that are not
documented as supported.
.. class:: struct_time
The type of the time value sequence returned by :func:gmtime,
:func:localtime, and :func:strptime. It is an object with a :term:named tuple interface: values can be accessed by index and by attribute name. The
following values are present:
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| Index | Attribute | Values |
+=======+===================+=================================+
| 0 | :attr:tm_year | (for example, 1993) |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| 1 | :attr:tm_mon | range [1, 12] |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| 2 | :attr:tm_mday | range [1, 31] |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| 3 | :attr:tm_hour | range [0, 23] |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| 4 | :attr:tm_min | range [0, 59] |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| 5 | :attr:tm_sec | range [0, 61]; see (2) in |
| | | :func:strftime description |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| 6 | :attr:tm_wday | range [0, 6], Monday is 0 |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| 7 | :attr:tm_yday | range [1, 366] |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| 8 | :attr:tm_isdst | 0, 1 or -1; see below |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| N/A | :attr:tm_zone | abbreviation of timezone name |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
| N/A | :attr:tm_gmtoff | offset east of UTC in seconds |
+-------+-------------------+---------------------------------+
Note that unlike the C structure, the month value is a range of [1, 12], not [0, 11].
In calls to :func:mktime, :attr:tm_isdst may be set to 1 when daylight
savings time is in effect, and 0 when it is not. A value of -1 indicates that
this is not known, and will usually result in the correct state being filled in.
When a tuple with an incorrect length is passed to a function expecting a
:class:struct_time, or having elements of the wrong type, a
:exc:TypeError is raised.
.. function:: time() -> float
Return the time in seconds since the epoch_ as a floating point
number. The specific date of the epoch and the handling of
leap seconds_ is platform dependent.
On Windows and most Unix systems, the epoch is January 1, 1970,
00:00:00 (UTC) and leap seconds are not counted towards the time
in seconds since the epoch. This is commonly referred to as
Unix time <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time>_.
To find out what the epoch is on a given platform, look at
gmtime(0).
Note that even though the time is always returned as a floating point number, not all systems provide time with a better precision than 1 second. While this function normally returns non-decreasing values, it can return a lower value than a previous call if the system clock has been set back between the two calls.
The number returned by :func:.time may be converted into a more common
time format (i.e. year, month, day, hour, etc...) in UTC by passing it to
:func:gmtime function or in local time by passing it to the
:func:localtime function. In both cases a
:class:struct_time object is returned, from which the components
of the calendar date may be accessed as attributes.
.. function:: thread_time() -> float
.. index:: single: CPU time single: processor time single: benchmarking
Return the value (in fractional seconds) of the sum of the system and user CPU time of the current thread. It does not include time elapsed during sleep. It is thread-specific by definition. The reference point of the returned value is undefined, so that only the difference between the results of consecutive calls in the same thread is valid.
.. availability:: Windows, Linux, Unix systems supporting
CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: thread_time_ns() -> int
Similar to :func:thread_time but return time as nanoseconds.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: time_ns() -> int
Similar to :func:time but returns time as an integer number of nanoseconds
since the epoch_.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. function:: tzset()
Reset the time conversion rules used by the library routines. The environment
variable :envvar:TZ specifies how this is done. It will also set the variables
tzname (from the :envvar:TZ environment variable), timezone (non-DST
seconds West of UTC), altzone (DST seconds west of UTC) and daylight
(to 0 if this timezone does not have any daylight saving time rules, or to
nonzero if there is a time, past, present or future when daylight saving time
applies).
.. availability:: Unix.
.. note::
Although in many cases, changing the :envvar:`TZ` environment variable may
affect the output of functions like :func:`localtime` without calling
:func:`tzset`, this behavior should not be relied on.
The :envvar:`TZ` environment variable should contain no whitespace.
The standard format of the :envvar:TZ environment variable is (whitespace
added for clarity)::
std offset [dst [offset [,start[/time], end[/time]]]]
Where the components are:
std and dst
Three or more alphanumerics giving the timezone abbreviations. These will be
propagated into time.tzname
offset
The offset has the form: ± hh[:mm[:ss]]. This indicates the value
added the local time to arrive at UTC. If preceded by a '-', the timezone
is east of the Prime Meridian; otherwise, it is west. If no offset follows
dst, summer time is assumed to be one hour ahead of standard time.
start[/time], end[/time]
Indicates when to change to and back from DST. The format of the
start and end dates are one of the following:
:samp:`J{n}`
The Julian day *n* (1 <= *n* <= 365). Leap days are not counted, so in
all years February 28 is day 59 and March 1 is day 60.
:samp:`{n}`
The zero-based Julian day (0 <= *n* <= 365). Leap days are counted, and
it is possible to refer to February 29.
:samp:`M{m}.{n}.{d}`
The *d*'th day (0 <= *d* <= 6) of week *n* of month *m* of the year (1
<= *n* <= 5, 1 <= *m* <= 12, where week 5 means "the last *d* day in
month *m*" which may occur in either the fourth or the fifth
week). Week 1 is the first week in which the *d*'th day occurs. Day
zero is a Sunday.
``time`` has the same format as ``offset`` except that no leading sign
('-' or '+') is allowed. The default, if time is not given, is 02:00:00.
::
>>> os.environ['TZ'] = 'EST+05EDT,M4.1.0,M10.5.0'
>>> time.tzset()
>>> time.strftime('%X %x %Z')
'02:07:36 05/08/03 EDT'
>>> os.environ['TZ'] = 'AEST-10AEDT-11,M10.5.0,M3.5.0'
>>> time.tzset()
>>> time.strftime('%X %x %Z')
'16:08:12 05/08/03 AEST'
On many Unix systems (including *BSD, Linux, Solaris, and Darwin), it is more
convenient to use the system's zoneinfo (:manpage:tzfile(5)) database to
specify the timezone rules. To do this, set the :envvar:TZ environment
variable to the path of the required timezone datafile, relative to the root of
the systems 'zoneinfo' timezone database, usually located at
:file:/usr/share/zoneinfo. For example, 'US/Eastern',
'Australia/Melbourne', 'Egypt' or 'Europe/Amsterdam'. ::
>>> os.environ['TZ'] = 'US/Eastern'
>>> time.tzset()
>>> time.tzname
('EST', 'EDT')
>>> os.environ['TZ'] = 'Egypt'
>>> time.tzset()
>>> time.tzname
('EET', 'EEST')
.. _time-clock-id-constants:
These constants are used as parameters for :func:clock_getres and
:func:clock_gettime.
.. data:: CLOCK_BOOTTIME
Identical to :data:CLOCK_MONOTONIC, except it also includes any time that
the system is suspended.
This allows applications to get a suspend-aware monotonic clock without
having to deal with the complications of :data:CLOCK_REALTIME, which may
have discontinuities if the time is changed using settimeofday() or
similar.
.. availability:: Linux 2.6.39 or later.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. data:: CLOCK_HIGHRES
The Solaris OS has a CLOCK_HIGHRES timer that attempts to use an optimal
hardware source, and may give close to nanosecond resolution.
CLOCK_HIGHRES is the nonadjustable, high-resolution clock.
.. availability:: Solaris.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. data:: CLOCK_MONOTONIC
Clock that cannot be set and represents monotonic time since some unspecified starting point.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. data:: CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW
Similar to :data:CLOCK_MONOTONIC, but provides access to a raw
hardware-based time that is not subject to NTP adjustments.
.. availability:: Linux 2.6.28 and newer, macOS 10.12 and newer.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. data:: CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID
High-resolution per-process timer from the CPU.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. data:: CLOCK_PROF
High-resolution per-process timer from the CPU.
.. availability:: FreeBSD, NetBSD 7 or later, OpenBSD.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
.. data:: CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID
Thread-specific CPU-time clock.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. data:: CLOCK_UPTIME
Time whose absolute value is the time the system has been running and not suspended, providing accurate uptime measurement, both absolute and interval.
.. availability:: FreeBSD, OpenBSD 5.5 or later.
.. versionadded:: 3.7
The following constant is the only parameter that can be sent to
:func:clock_settime.
.. data:: CLOCK_REALTIME
System-wide real-time clock. Setting this clock requires appropriate privileges.
.. availability:: Unix.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. _time-timezone-constants:
.. data:: altzone
The offset of the local DST timezone, in seconds west of UTC, if one is defined.
This is negative if the local DST timezone is east of UTC (as in Western Europe,
including the UK). Only use this if daylight is nonzero. See note below.
.. data:: daylight
Nonzero if a DST timezone is defined. See note below.
.. data:: timezone
The offset of the local (non-DST) timezone, in seconds west of UTC (negative in most of Western Europe, positive in the US, zero in the UK). See note below.
.. data:: tzname
A tuple of two strings: the first is the name of the local non-DST timezone, the second is the name of the local DST timezone. If no DST timezone is defined, the second string should not be used. See note below.
.. note::
For the above Timezone constants (:data:altzone, :data:daylight, :data:timezone,
and :data:tzname), the value is determined by the timezone rules in effect
at module load time or the last time :func:tzset is called and may be incorrect
for times in the past. It is recommended to use the :attr:tm_gmtoff and
:attr:tm_zone results from :func:localtime to obtain timezone information.
.. seealso::
Module :mod:datetime
More object-oriented interface to dates and times.
Module :mod:locale
Internationalization services. The locale setting affects the interpretation
of many format specifiers in :func:strftime and :func:strptime.
Module :mod:calendar
General calendar-related functions. :func:~calendar.timegm is the
inverse of :func:gmtime from this module.
.. rubric:: Footnotes
.. [#] The use of %Z is now deprecated, but the %z escape that expands to the
preferred hour/minute offset is not supported by all ANSI C libraries. Also, a
strict reading of the original 1982 :rfc:822 standard calls for a two-digit
year (%y rather than %Y), but practice moved to 4-digit years long before the
year 2000. After that, :rfc:822 became obsolete and the 4-digit year has
been first recommended by :rfc:1123 and then mandated by :rfc:2822.