[New-bugs-announce] [issue9811] strftime strips '%' from unknown format codes on OS X

[Sverre Johansen]

New submission from Sverre Johansen <sverre.johansen at gmail.com>:

There seems to be a platform difference in the way stftime handles 
unknown format codes.

In OSX Python removes the percentage sign from the returned string when the format code is unknown. In Linux it leaves it.

Look at the following example:

This is Python 3.1.2 in Ubuntu:

    Python 3.1.2 (r312:79147, Apr 15 2010, 15:35:48) 
    [GCC 4.4.3] on linux2
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> import datetime
    >>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%q")
    '%q'

And this is Python 3.1.2 on Max OSX:

    Python 3.1.2 (r312:79147, Sep  9 2010, 11:11:24) 
    [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5664)] on darwin
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> import datetime
    >>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%q")
    'q'

I've gotten the same result in 2.5, 2.6 and 3.1.

FYI, this broke some code that parsed the same string first with strftime, and then used string interpolation (The mac version
deleted all percentage signs before '('):

    >>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%Y - %(foobar)s") % {"foobar": "egg"}

This does not work in OSX.

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 115933
nosy: sverrejoh
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: strftime strips '%' from unknown format codes on OS X
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.1

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue9811>
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