Description

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2010-04-03.15:08:42.673>
labels = ['3.8', '3.9', 'extension-modules', 'expert-unicode', 'type-bug', '3.10', 'library', 'OS-windows']
title = 'time.strftime() and Unicode characters on Windows'
updated_at = <Date 2021-03-08.19:17:29.084>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/AndiDogold'

activity = <Date 2021-03-08.19:17:29.084>
actor = 'eryksun'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Extension Modules', 'Library (Lib)', 'Unicode', 'Windows']
creation = <Date 2010-04-03.15:08:42.673>
creator = 'AndiDog_old'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 8304
keywords = []
message_count = 16.0
messages = ['102269', '102298', '102310', '102332', '102335', '159341', '222667', '226114', '251554', '251558', '251560', '255043', '255133', '388241', '388277', '388286']
nosy_count = 12.0
nosy_names = ['terry.reedy', 'paul.moore', 'belopolsky', 'vstinner', 'eric.smith', 'tim.golden', 'ezio.melotti', 'AndiDog_old', 'shimizukawa', 'zach.ware', 'eryksun', 'steve.dower']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue8304'
versions = ['Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9', 'Python 3.10']

Activity

1. AndiDogold commented on Apr 3, 2010

   

   AndiDogoldmannequin

   on Apr 3, 2010

   MannequinAuthor

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   There is inconsistent behavior in time.strftime, comparing Python 2.6 and 3.1. In 3.1, non-ASCII Unicode characters seem to get dropped whereas in 2.6 you can keep them using the necessary Unicode-to-UTF8 workaround.

   This should be fixed if it isn't intended behavior.

   Python 2.6

   >>> time.strftime(u"%d\u200F%A".encode("utf-8"), time.gmtime()).decode("utf-8")
   u'03\u200fSaturday'
   >>> time.strftime(u"%d\u0041%A".encode("utf-8"), time.gmtime()).decode("utf-8")
   u'03ASaturday'

   Python 3.1

   >>> time.strftime("%d\u200F%A", time.gmtime())
   ''
   >>> len(time.strftime("%d\u200F%A", time.gmtime()))
   0
   >>> time.strftime("%d\u0041%A", time.gmtime())
   '03ASaturday'
2. AndiDogold

   added

   stdlibStandard Library Python modules in the Lib/ directoryStandard Library Python modules in the Lib/ directory

   topic-unicode

   type-bugAn unexpected behavior, bug, or errorAn unexpected behavior, bug, or error

   on Apr 3, 2010
3. ezio-melotti commented on Apr 3, 2010

   

   ezio-melotti

   on Apr 3, 2010

   Member

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   This seems to be fixed now, on both 3.1 and 3.2.
   Can you try with 3.1.2 and see if it works?
   What operating system are you using?
4. ezio-melotti commented on Apr 4, 2010

   

   ezio-melotti

   on Apr 4, 2010

   Member

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   Actually the bug seems related to Windows.
5. ezio-melotti

   added

   OS-windows

   on Apr 4, 2010
6. AndiDogold commented on Apr 4, 2010

   

   AndiDogoldmannequin

   on Apr 4, 2010

   MannequinAuthor

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   Just installed Python 3.1.2, same problem. I'm using Windows XP SP2 with two Python installations (2.6.4 and now 3.1.2).
7. AndiDogold commented on Apr 4, 2010

   

   AndiDogoldmannequin

   on Apr 4, 2010

   MannequinAuthor

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   Definitely a Windows problem. I did this on Visual Studio 2008:

   wchar_t out[1000];
   time_t currentTime;
   time(&currentTime);
   tm *timeStruct = gmtime(&currentTime);
   

       size_t ret = wcsftime(out, 1000, L"%d%A", timeStruct);
       wprintf(L"ret = %d, out = (%s)\n", ret, out);

       ret = wcsftime(out, 1000, L"%d\u200f%A", timeStruct);
       wprintf(L"ret = %d, out = (%s)\n", ret, out);

   and the output was

       ret = 8, out = (04Sunday)
       ret = 0, out = ()

   Python really shouldn't use any so-called standard functions on Windows. They never work as expected ^^...
8. vstinner commented on Apr 25, 2012

   

   vstinner

   on Apr 25, 2012

   Member

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   Actually the bug seems related to Windows.

   See also the issue bpo-10653: wcsftime() doesn't format correctly time zones, so Python 3 uses strftime() instead.
9. BreamoreBoy commented on Jul 10, 2014

   

   BreamoreBoymannequin

   on Jul 10, 2014

   Mannequin

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   Using 3.4.1 and 3.5.0 I get:-

   time.strftime("%d\u200F%A", time.gmtime())
   Traceback (most recent call last):
     File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
   UnicodeEncodeError: 'locale' codec can't encode character '\u200f' in position 2: Illegal byte sequence
10. terryjreedy commented on Aug 30, 2014

    

    terryjreedy

    on Aug 30, 2014

    Member

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    I verified Marks 3.4.1 result with Idle.

    It strikes me as a bug that a function that maps a unicode format string to a unicode string with interpolations added should ever encode the format to bytes, lets alone using using an encoding that fails or loses information. It is especially weird given that % formatting does not even work (at present) for bytes.

    It seems to me that strftime should never encode the non-special parts of the format text. Instead, it could split the format (re.split) into a list of alternatine '%x' pairs and running text segments, replace the '%x' entries with the proper entries, and return the list joined back into a string. Some replacements would be locale dependent, other not.

    (Just wondering, are the locate names of days and months bytes restricted to ascii or unrestricted unicode using native characters?)
11. vstinner

    changed the title [-]strftime and Unicode characters[/-] [+]time.strftime() and Unicode characters on Windows[/+] on Oct 1, 2014
12. BreamoreBoy commented on Sep 24, 2015

    

    BreamoreBoymannequin

    on Sep 24, 2015

    Mannequin

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    @alexander what is you take on this please? I can confirm that it is still a problem on Windows in 3.5.0.
13. abalkin commented on Sep 25, 2015

    

    abalkin

    on Sep 25, 2015

    Member

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    Mark, I am no expert on Windows. I believe Victor is most knowledgable in this area.
14. 22 remaining items
15. serhiy-storchaka

    added a commit that references this issue on Oct 17, 2024

    gh-52551: Fix encoding issues in strftime() (GH-125193)

    ad3eac1
16. serhiy-storchaka

    closed this as completedin #125193on Oct 17, 2024
17. github-project-automation

    moved this to Done in Date and time issues 🕰️on Oct 17, 2024
18. serhiy-storchaka

    added a commit that references this issue on Oct 17, 2024

    [3.13] pythongh-52551: Fix encoding issues in strftime() (pythonGH-12…

    13ef787
19. serhiy-storchaka

    reopened this on Oct 17, 2024
20. serhiy-storchaka

    added a commit that references this issue on Oct 17, 2024

    pythongh-52551: Fix encoding issues in strftime() (pythonGH-125193)

    4019173
21. serhiy-storchaka commented on Oct 17, 2024

    

    serhiy-storchaka

    on Oct 17, 2024

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    Python's time.strftime() now passes only ASCII strings to C's strftime(), so there are no encoding errors. But the result of strftime() still can contain non-ASCII data and it need to be decoded. I think that switching to wcsftime() would make decoding less prone to locale misconfiguration errors.

    Reacted by Steve Dower
22. serhiy-storchaka

    added 2 commits that reference this issue on Oct 17, 2024

    pythongh-52551: Use wcsftime() to implement time.strftime() on Windows

    629ff02

    [3.13] gh-52551: Fix encoding issues in strftime() (GH-125193) (GH-12…

    08ccbb9
23. miss-islington

    added a commit that references this issue on Oct 17, 2024

    [3.13] pythongh-52551: Fix encoding issues in strftime() (pythonGH-12…

    a34caba
24. serhiy-storchaka

    added 2 commits that reference this issue on Oct 17, 2024

    [3.12] gh-52551: Fix encoding issues in strftime() (GH-125193) (GH-12…

    232b303

    gh-52551: Use wcsftime() to implement time.strftime() on Windows (GH-…

    a7443a1
25. serhiy-storchaka

    closed this as completedon Oct 19, 2024
26. ebonnal

    added 2 commits that reference this issue on Jan 12, 2025

    pythongh-52551: Fix encoding issues in strftime() (pythonGH-125193)

    3a7c158

    pythongh-52551: Use wcsftime() to implement time.strftime() on Windows (

    2cf7336

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