The \dfn{epoch}\index{epoch} is the point where the time starts. On

January 1st of that year, at 0 hours, the ``time since the epoch'' is

zero. For \UNIX{}, the epoch is 1970. To find out what the epoch is,

The functions in this module do not handle dates and times before the

epoch or far in the future. The cut-off point in the future is

environment variable \envvar{PYTHONY2K} is set to a non-empty string,

in which case it is initialized to \code{0}. Thus, you can set

\envvar{PYTHONY2K} to a non-empty string in the environment to require 4-digit

are mapped to 1969-1999, and values 0--68 are mapped to 2000--2068.

Values 100--1899 are always illegal. Note that this is new as of

Python 1.5.2(a2); earlier versions, up to Python 1.5.1 and 1.5.2a1,

The precision of the various real-time functions may be less than

is a tuple of 9 integers: year (e.g.\ 1993), month (1--12), day

(1--31), hour (0--23), minute (0--59), second (0--59), weekday (0--6,

monday is 0), Julian day (1--366) and daylight savings flag (-1, 0 or

of 1-12, not 0-11. A year value will be handled as descibed under

``Year 2000 (Y2K) issues'' above. A \code{-1} argument as daylight

savings flag, passed to \function{mktime()} will usually result in the

\begin{funcdesc}{asctime}{tuple}

Convert a tuple representing a time as returned by \function{gmtime()}

or \function{localtime()} to a 24-character string of the following form:

the same name, there is no trailing newline.

\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{clock}{}

Return the current CPU time as a floating point number expressed in

seconds. The precision, and in fact the very definiton of the meaning

of the same name, but in any case, this is the function to use for

benchmarking\index{benchmarking} Python or timing algorithms.

\end{funcdesc}

\end{tableii}

Additional directives may be supported on certain platforms, but

On some platforms, an optional field width and precision

specification can immediately follow the initial \character{\%} of a