Enough with all the talky talky, here's a simple snippet I cooked up for a friend this morning to solve his problem of the moment: how to coax Python into printing out a future date (6 weeks in the future, to be exact) in the format he wants. Hope it's useful to somebody. Let me know if I screwed anything up.
<div class="source"><pre><span></span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="kn">import</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">datetime</span> <span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="n">now</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">datetime</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">datetime</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">now</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nb">print</span> <span class="n">now</span> <span class="mi">2008</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">04</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">21</span> <span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">19</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mf">35.832928</span> <span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="kn">from</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">datetime</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">timedelta</span> <span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="n">diff</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">datetime</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">timedelta</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">days</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">42</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nb">print</span> <span class="n">diff</span> <span class="mi">42</span> <span class="n">days</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">00</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">00</span> <span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nb">print</span> <span class="n">now</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="n">diff</span> <span class="mi">2008</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">06</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">02</span> <span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">19</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mf">35.832928</span> <span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="n">future</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">now</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="n">diff</span> <span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">gt</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="n">future</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">strftime</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"%m/</span><span class="si">%d</span><span class="s2">/%Y"</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="s1">'06/02/2008'</span> </pre></div>Documentation on how you can customize strftime to print dates in the format you need can be found here. Scroll down to the middle-ish part of the page.