Messages with a time stamp

[Cecil Westerhof]

For testing I want my messages time stamped like:
    02:06:32: Check that the non recursive variants give the same value from 1000 upto 100000 step 1000
    02:06:32: Currently at    1000
    02:06:33: Currently at   11000
    02:06:35: Currently at   21000
    02:06:42: Currently at   31000
    02:06:56: Currently at   41000
    02:07:18: Currently at   51000
    02:07:51: Currently at   61000
    02:08:43: Currently at   71000
    02:09:49: Currently at   81000
    02:11:13: Currently at   91000
    02:13:01: Calculating values OK

    02:13:01: Start with the time needed to calculate 100000 times
    02:13:01: Timing factorial_iterative         (985): 31
    02:13:32: Timing factorial_recursive         (985): 55
    02:14:28: Timing factorial_recursive_old     (985): 56
    02:15:24: Timing factorial_tail_recursion    (985): 35
    02:16:00: Timing factorial_tail_recursion_old(985): 40

    02:16:40: Start with the time needed to calculate 1 times
              No recursive, because without tail recursion you would run out of stack space
    02:16:40: Timing factorial_iterative         (100000): 3.7705
    02:16:44: Timing factorial_tail_recursion    (100000): 3.7692
    02:16:48: Timing factorial_tail_recursion_old(100000): 4.1537

And sometimes I do not want the time shown, to signify that the
message belongs to the previous message. And sometimes I want no
newline, because I want to print something behind it. For example the
time needed to calculate something:
    02:13:01: Timing factorial_iterative         (985): 31

For this I wrote:
    ### Have the possibility to give the stream instead of using stdout
    class TimedMessage:
        """
        For printing messages with time prepended before it
        Has the possibilty to keep time print blank for when several messages
        are send shortly after eachother.
        Also the possibilty to stay on the same line when things need to be appended
        """

        def give_msg(self, message, show_time = True, use_newline = True):
            """
            Prints the message to stdout
            Use show_time = False when you do not want time
            Use use_newline = False if you do not want a newline
            """

            if show_time:
                time = strftime(self._format)
            else:
                time = self._blank_time
            formatted_message = time + message
            if use_newline:
                print(formatted_message)
            else:
                sys.stdout.write(formatted_message)
                sys.stdout.flush()

        def __init__(self, format = '%H:%M:%S: '):
            self._format        = format
            self._blank_time    = ' ' * len(strftime(self._format))

Can I improve on this?

It is shared at:
    https://github.com/CecilWesterhof/PythonLibrary/blob/master/utilDecebal.py

-- 
Cecil Westerhof
Senior Software Engineer
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilwesterhof