Scriptling Scriptling

time

The time library provides time-related functions for working with Unix timestamps, time tuples, formatting, parsing, and pausing execution, following Python’s time module with the differences listed below.

import time

Available Functions

Function Description
now() Scriptling-specific: current local date/time as an ISO 8601 string (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.ffffff).
time() Current Unix timestamp as a float.
perf_counter() High-resolution monotonic timer; only differences between calls are meaningful.
sleep(seconds) Pauses execution for the specified number of seconds.
localtime(secs=None) Local time tuple for a timestamp or datetime (default: now).
gmtime(secs=None) UTC time tuple for a timestamp or datetime (default: now).
mktime(tuple) Unix timestamp for a local time tuple (only the first six fields are used).
strftime(format, t=None) Format a time tuple (default: current local time) using format codes.
strptime(string, format) Parse a string into a time tuple; raises if it does not match.
asctime(t=None) Time tuple as "Mon Jan 15 10:30:45 2024".
ctime(secs=None) Timestamp as a local asctime()-style string.

Example

import time

now = time.time()                 # float seconds since the epoch
stamp = time.now()                # Scriptling-specific: ISO 8601 string, e.g. "2025-11-26T11:58:18.123456"

start = time.perf_counter()
time.sleep(0.1)                   # seconds, int or float
print(time.perf_counter() - start >= 0.1)   # True

t = time.gmtime(1705314645)       # UTC time tuple (a list)
print(t)                          # [2024, 1, 15, 10, 30, 45, 1, 15, 0]
print(time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", t))  # 2024-01-15 10:30:45
print(time.asctime(t))            # Mon Jan 15 10:30:45 2024

parsed = time.strptime("2024-01-15 10:30:45", "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
print(parsed[:6])                 # [2024, 1, 15, 10, 30, 45]

local = time.localtime(now)       # local time tuple; also accepts a datetime
print(abs(time.mktime(local) - now) < 1)   # True: mktime reverses localtime
print(time.ctime(now))            # local time, e.g. "Mon Jan 15 10:30:45 2024"

Time Tuple Format

Time tuples are 9-element lists with the following structure:

[year, month, day, hour, minute, second, weekday, yearday, dst]
  • year: Year (e.g., 2025)
  • month: Month (1-12)
  • day: Day of month (1-31)
  • hour: Hour (0-23)
  • minute: Minute (0-59)
  • second: Second (0-59)
  • weekday: Day of week (0=Sunday, 6=Saturday). This follows Go’s convention and differs from Python, where Monday is 0.
  • yearday: Day of year (1-366)
  • dst: Daylight saving time flag. Always 0 (not currently determined).

Format Codes

Code Description Example
%Y Year (4 digits) 2024
%m Month (01-12) 01
%d Day (01-31) 15
%H Hour (00-23) 18
%M Minute (00-59) 30
%S Second (00-59) 45
%A Full weekday Monday
%a Abbreviated weekday Mon
%B Full month January
%b Abbreviated month Jan
%p AM/PM PM

Differences from Python

  • Time tuples are plain 9-element lists, not struct_time: index them (t[0]) rather than using t.tm_year. mktime() accepts a list.
  • The weekday field counts from Sunday (0), not Monday, and dst is always 0.
  • Only the format codes in the table above are supported by strftime()/strptime(); others (such as %I, %j, %y, %Z) are left in the output unchanged. datetime formatting also supports %I, %Z and %z.
  • ctime()/asctime() do not pad single-digit days ("Fri Jan 5 ..."; Python gives "Fri Jan 5 ...").
  • time.now() is an addition. monotonic(), time_ns(), process_time() and the other *_ns variants are not available; use perf_counter().

See Also

  • datetime - Higher-level date/time objects with arithmetic and comparison
  • platform - Platform identifying data
  • io - In-memory I/O streams