A test library for handling date and time values.

DateTime is a Robot Framework standard library that supports creating and converting date and time values (e.g. Get Current Date, Convert Time), as well as doing simple calculations with them (e.g. Subtract Time From Date, Add Time To Time). It supports dates and times in various formats, and can also be used by other libraries programmatically.

This library is new in Robot Framework 2.8.5.

Table of Contents

• Terminology
• Date formats
• Time formats
• Millisecond handling
• Programmatic usage
• Shortcuts
• Keywords

Terminology

In the context of this library, date and time generally have following meanings:

• date: An entity with both date and time components but without any timezone information. For example, 2014-06-11 10:07:42.
• time: A time interval. For example, 1 hour 20 minutes or 01:20:00.

This terminology differs from what Python's standard datetime module uses. Basically its datetime and timedelta objects match date and time as defined by this library.

Date formats

Dates can given to and received from keywords in timestamp, custom timestamp, Python datetime and epoch time formats. These formats are discussed thoroughly in subsequent sections.

Input format is determined automatically based on the given date except when using custom timestamps, in which case it needs to be given using date_format argument. Default result format is timestamp, but it can be overridden using result_format argument.

Timestamp

If a date is given as a string, it is always considered to be a timestamp. If no custom formatting is given using date_format argument, the timestamp is expected to be in ISO 8601 like format YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss.mil, where any non-digit character can be used as a separator or separators can be omitted altogether. Additionally, only the date part is mandatory, all possibly missing time components are considered to be zeros.

Dates can also be returned in the same YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss.mil format by using timestamp value with result_format argument. This is also the default format that keywords returning dates use. Milliseconds can be excluded using exclude_millis as explained in Millisecond handling section.

Examples:

Custom timestamp

It is possible to use custom timestamps in both input and output. The custom format is same as accepted by Python's datatime.strptime function. For example, the default timestamp discussed in the previous section would match %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f.

When using a custom timestamp in input, it must be specified using date_format argument. The actual input value must be a string that matches the specified format exactly. When using a custom timestamp in output, it must be given using result_format argument.

Examples:

Python datetime

Python's standard datetime objects can be used both in input and output. In input they are recognized automatically, and in output it is possible to get them by giving datetime value to result_format argument.

One nice benefit with datetime objects is that they have different time components available as attributes that can be easily accessed using the extended variable syntax.

Examples:

Epoch time

Epoch time is the time in seconds since the UNIX epoch i.e. 00:00:00.000 (UTC) 1 January 1970. To give a date in epoch time, it must be given as a number (integer or float), not as a string. To return a date in epoch time, it is possible to use epoch value with result_format argument. Epoch time is returned as a floating point number.

Notice that epoch time itself is independent on timezones and thus same around the world at a certain time. What local time a certain epoch time matches obviously then depends on the timezone. For example, examples below were tested in Finland but verifications would fail on other timezones.

Examples:

Earliest supported date

The earliest date that is supported depends on the date format and to some extend on the platform:

• Timestamps support year 1900 and above.
• Python datetime objects support year 1 and above.
• Epoch time supports 1970 and above on Windows with Python and IronPython.
• On other platforms epoch time supports 1900 and above or even earlier.

Prior to Robot Framework 2.9.2, all formats had same limitation as epoch time has nowadays.

Time formats

Similarly as dates, times can be given to and received from keywords in various different formats. Supported formats are number, time string (verbose and compact), timer string and Python timedelta.

Input format for time is always determined automatically based on the input. Result format is number by default, but it can be customised using result_format argument.

Number

Time given as a number is interpreted to be seconds. It can be given either as an integer or a float, or it can be a string that can be converted to a number.

To return a time as a number, result_format argument must have value number, which is also the default. Returned number is always a float.

Examples:

Time string

Time strings are strings in format like 1 minute 42 seconds or 1min 42s. The basic idea of this format is having first a number and then a text specifying what time that number represents. Numbers can be either integers or floating point numbers, the whole format is case and space insensitive, and it is possible to add a minus prefix to specify negative times. The available time specifiers are:

• days, day, d
• hours, hour, h
• minutes, minute, mins, min, m
• seconds, second, secs, sec, s
• milliseconds, millisecond, millis, ms

When returning a time string, it is possible to select between verbose and compact representations using result_format argument. The verbose format uses long specifiers day, hour, minute, second and millisecond, and adds s at the end when needed. The compact format uses shorter specifiers d, h, min, s and ms, and even drops the space between the number and the specifier.

Examples:

Timer string

Timer string is a string given in timer like format hh:mm:ss.mil. In this format both hour and millisecond parts are optional, leading and trailing zeros can be left out when they are not meaningful, and negative times can be represented by adding a minus prefix.

To return a time as timer string, result_format argument must be given value timer. Timer strings are by default returned in full hh:mm:ss.mil format, but milliseconds can be excluded using exclude_millis as explained in Millisecond handling section.

Examples:

Python timedelta

Python's standard timedelta objects are also supported both in input and in output. In input they are recognized automatically, and in output it is possible to receive them by giving timedelta value to result_format argument.

Examples:

Millisecond handling

This library handles dates and times internally using the precision of the given input. With timestamp, time string, and timer string result formats seconds are, however, rounded to millisecond accuracy. Milliseconds may also be included even if there would be none.

All keywords returning dates or times have an option to leave milliseconds out by giving a true value to exclude_millis argument. If the argument is given as a string, it is considered true unless it is empty or case-insensitively equal to false or no. Other argument types are tested using same rules as in Python. Notice that prior to Robot Framework 2.9, all strings except the empty string were considered true.

When milliseconds are excluded, seconds in returned dates and times are rounded to the nearest full second. With timestamp and timer string result formats, milliseconds will also be removed from the returned string altogether.

Examples:

Programmatic usage

In addition to be used as normal library, this library is intended to provide a stable API for other libraries to use if they want to support same date and time formats as this library. All the provided keywords are available as functions that can be easily imported:

from robot.libraries.DateTime import convert_time

def example_keyword(timeout):
    seconds = convert_time(timeout)
    # ...

Additionally helper classes Date and Time can be used directly:

from robot.libraries.DateTime import Date, Time

def example_keyword(date, interval):
    date = Date(date).convert('datetime')
    interval = Time(interval).convert('number')
    # ...