date62

Compact string-based date(time) format for logging, data engineering, and visualizations.

Features

• Compact: 4 ASCII characters for date, 7 characters for datetime
• URL safe: uses Base62 encoding
• Natural sorting
• Semi-human-readable
• Covers range from 567-Jan-01 to 3843-Dec-31
• Arbitrary sub-second precision
• More readable shortcut form for values between 1970-Jan-01 and 2069-Dec-31
• Timezone info not supported at the moment
• Use cases:
  • Logging timestamps
  • Visualize dates on charts
  • Datetime-based file identifiers
  • Sub-second-precision string labels

Installation

$ pip install date62

Examples

date or datetime	Date62
2024-Dec-29	24CT, WeCT
2025-Jan-01	2511, Wf11
2025-Jan-01 00:01:02	2511012, Wf11012
2025-Jan-01 00:01:02.345	25110125Z, Wf...
2025-Jan-01 00:01:02.345678	25110125ZAw, Wf...
2025-Jan-01 00:01:02.345678012	25110125ZAw0C, Wf...
2025-Jan-01 00:01:02.345678012345	25110125ZAw0C5Z, Wf...

Usage

• Encode

Encode

Works for datetime, date, time, int, float, Decimal.

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> from decimal import Decimal
>>> import date62

>>> d = '2024-12-29 12:34:56.789012'
>>> dtm = datetime.strptime(d, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')

>>> date62.encode(dtm)
'WeCTCYu'

>>> date62.encode(dtm, scut=True, prec=2)
'24CTCYuCj0C'

>>> date62.encode(dtm.date(), scut=True)
'24CT'

>>> date62.encode(dtm.time())
'CYu'

>>> date62.encode(dtm.time(), prec=3)
'CYuCj0C00'

>>> t = '1735468496.789012345678'
>>> date62.encode(Decimal(t), scut=True, prec=4)
'24CTAYuCj0C5ZAw'

CLI Reference

$ python -m date62 --help
usage: date62 [-h] [--version] {encode,now,time,today} ...

options:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
--version             show program's version number and exit

subcommands:
{encode,now,time,today}
encode              Encode ISO 8601 datetime string to Date62 format.
now                 Current local datetime in Date62 format.
time                Current local datetime in Date62 format.
today               Current local date in Date62 format.

date62 encode

$ date62 parse --help
usage: date62 encode [-h] [-n] [-p INT] text

positional arguments:
text            text containing date or datetime

options:
-h, --help      show this help message and exit
-n, --noscut    do not use shortcut form of Date62
-p, --prec INT  sub-second precision: 1=milli, 2=micro, 3=nano, etc.

date62 now

$ date62 now --help
usage: date62 now [-h] [-n] [-p INT]

options:
-h, --help      show this help message and exit
-n, --noscut    do not use shortcut form of Date62
-p, --prec INT  sub-second precision: 1=milli, 2=micro, 3=nano, etc.

date62 time

$ date62 now --help
usage: date62 time [-h] [-p INT]

options:
-h, --help      show this help message and exit
-p, --prec INT  sub-second precision: 1=milli, 2=micro, 3=nano, etc.

date62 today

$ date62 today --help
usage: date62 today [-h] [-n]

options:
-h, --help    show this help message and exit
-n, --noscut  do not use shortcut form of Date62

Contributing

Pull requests, feature requests, and bug reports are welcome!

• Contribution guidelines

Authors

• Michael Makukha

See also

• Documentation
• Issues
• Changelog
• Security Policy
• Contribution Guidelines
• Code of Conduct
• License