How to print date in a regular format in Python?

If you print the dates directly using a print function, you'd get regular dates, 

Example

import datetime today = datetime.date.today() print(today)

Output

You will get the output −

2018-1-2

which is exactly what you want. But when you append this to a list and then try to print it, 

 Example

import datetime my_list = [] today = datetime.date.today() my_list.append(today) print(my_list)

Output

You will get the output −

[datetime.date(2018, 1, 2)]

This is happening because datetimes are objects. Therefore, when you manipulate them, you manipulate objects, not strings, not timestamps nor anything. Any object in Python have TWO string representations. The regular representation that is used by "print", can be get using the str() function. This one is implemented using the __str__ function in the class for that object. The alternative representation that is used to represent the object nature (as a data). It can be get using the repr() function.

So in order to get the correct representation, you need to call str explicitly on your datetime objects. 

Example

import datetime my_list = [] today = datetime.date.today() my_list.append(str(today)) print(my_list)

Output

You will get the output −

['2018-01-02']