How do I strftime a date object in a different locale? [duplicate]

The example given by Rob is great, but isn't threadsafe. Here's a version that works with threads:

import locale
import threading

from datetime import datetime
from contextlib import contextmanager


LOCALE_LOCK = threading.Lock()

@contextmanager
def setlocale(name):
    with LOCALE_LOCK:
        saved = locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL)
        try:
            yield locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, name)
        finally:
            locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, saved)

# Let's set a non-US locale
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'de_DE.UTF-8')

# Example to write a formatted English date
with setlocale('C'):
    print(datetime.now().strftime('%a, %b')) # e.g. => "Thu, Jun"

# Example to read a formatted English date
with setlocale('C'):
    mydate = datetime.strptime('Thu, Jun', '%a, %b')

It creates a threadsafe context manager using a global lock and allows you to have multiple threads running locale-dependent code by using the LOCALE_LOCK. It also handles exceptions from the yield statement to ensure the original locale is always restored.

No, there is no way to call strftime() with a specific locale.

Assuming that your app is not multi-threaded, save and restore the existing locale, and set your locale to 'C' when you invoke strftime.

#! /usr/bin/python3
import time
import locale


def get_c_locale_abbrev():
  lc = locale.setlocale(locale.LC_TIME)
  try:
    locale.setlocale(locale.LC_TIME, "C")
    return time.strftime("%a-%b")
  finally:
    locale.setlocale(locale.LC_TIME, lc)

# Let's suppose that we're french
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'fr_FR.utf8')

# Should print french, english, then french
print(time.strftime('%a-%b'))
print(get_c_locale_abbrev())
print(time.strftime('%a-%b'))

If you prefer with: to try:-finally:, you could whip up a context manager:

#! /usr/bin/python3
import time
import locale
import contextlib

@contextlib.contextmanager
def setlocale(*args, **kw):
  saved = locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL)
  yield locale.setlocale(*args, **kw)
  locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, saved)

def get_c_locale_abbrev():
  with setlocale(locale.LC_TIME, "C"):
    return time.strftime("%a-%b")

# Let's suppose that we're french
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'fr_FR.utf8')

# Should print french, english, then french
print(time.strftime('%a-%b'))
print(get_c_locale_abbrev())
print(time.strftime('%a-%b'))

How do I strftime a date object in a different locale? [duplicate]

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