When you want format a date in a language/locale specific manner, you can use Python's standard locale module. locale uses the underlying OS' locale features and if you're familar with how UNIX handles locales, you'll be right at home with Python.
For instance, for displaying formatted dates in Norwegian on the UNIX
command line, you'll need to have an appropriate locale installed on
your machine. For a Debian or
Arch based system, this means making sure
nb_NO.utf8 is enabled in /etc/locale.gen and then runnnig
locale-gen:
# vim /etc/locale.gen
# locale-gen
# locale -a | grep nb_NO
nb_NO.utf8
If you now start a new shell, you should be able to list and use the
new nb_NO.utf8 locale. In the example below, I show the output of
the date command using the en_GB.utf8 locale and then using the
nb_NO.utf8 locale:
$ export LC_ALL=en_GB.utf8
$ date
Mon 30 Mar 18:36:56 CEST 2015
$ export LC_ALL=nb_NO.utf8
$ date
ma. 30. mars 18:36:42 +0200 2015
As you can see, the first date command says "Mon" for "Monday",
whereas it says "ma." for "mandag" when I use the Norwegian locale.
With this in place, we're ready to get locale/language formatted dates in Python.
# python3
import locale
import datetime
dt = datetime.datetime(2015, 11, 15, 16, 30)
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, "en_GB.utf8")
print(dt.strftime("%A, %d. %B %Y %I:%M%p"))
'Tuesday, 15. November 2015 04:30pm'
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, "nb_NO.utf8")
print(dt.strftime("%A, %d. %B %Y %I:%M%p"))
'tirsdag, 15. november 2015 04:30'
As you can see, it's just like using LC_ALL on the command line. As
long as you've set the locale, using the locale.setlocale() method,
any calls to datetime.strftime() produce output according to the
locale set.
Pretty nice, eh?
