[Python] Why does `strftime("%Y")` not yield a 4-digit year for dates < 1000 AD in Python's...

Discussão em 'Python' iniciado por Stack, Abril 23, 2025.

  1. Stack

    Stack Membro Participativo

    I am puzzled by an inconsistency when calling .strftime() for dates which are pre-1000 AD, using Python's datetime module.

    Take the following example:

    import datetime
    old_date = datetime.date(year=33, month=3, day=28) # 28th March 33AD

    old_date.isoformat()
    >>> "0033-03-28" # Fine!

    old_date.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
    >>> "33-03-28" # Woah - where did my leading zeros go?

    # And even worse
    datetime.datetime.strptime(old_date.strftime("%Y-%m-%d"), "%Y-%m-%d")
    >>>
    ...
    File "<input>", line 1, in <module>
    File "/usr/lib/python3.12/_strptime.py", line 554, in _strptime_datetime
    tt, fraction, gmtoff_fraction = _strptime(data_string, format)
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    File "/usr/lib/python3.12/_strptime.py", line 333, in _strptime
    raise ValueError("time data %r does not match format %r" %
    ValueError: time data '33-03-28' does not match format '%Y-%m-%d'


    The documentation shows examples of %Y yielding zero-padded years. Even using %G, which is documented to be an ISO-8601 4-digit year, is showing only two digits.

    This caused a problem in an application where a user can enter a date, and if they type in an old date the exception above would arise when trying to convert a date-string back into a date.

    Presumably there is something in my local configuration which is causing this, as this seems too obvious to be a bug in Python. I'm using Python 3.12 on Ubuntu 24.04.

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