How to get formatted date time in python

You can use the same formatting string in strftime on a datetime object:

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%b-%d-%I%M%p-%G')
'May-16-0245PM-2011'

Incidentally, I'd just like to put a word in for the joy of ISO-8601 date formatting

Same formatting, using strftime():

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%b-%d-%I%M%p-%G')
'May-16-1050PM-2011'

To get your filename, it's as simple as:

 >>> datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%b-%d-%I%M%p-%G') + '.tar'
'May-16-1050PM-2011.tar'

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