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what is strftime fr?

gastownhall/strftime — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-07-18 · repo last pushed 2026-06-08

Audience · developerComplexity · 2/5MaintainedSetup · easy

tl;dr

A fast Go library for formatting dates and times using strftime-style pattern strings, pre-compiled for speed when reused.

vibe map

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Formats dates and times
      Uses strftime patterns
      Pre-compiles patterns
    Tech stack
      Go
      strftime syntax
    Use cases
      Web service logging
      API date formatting
      High-performance formatting
    Audience
      Go developers
      Backend engineers
    Notable features
      3 to 10x faster
      Custom locale names
      Extensible format codes

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filefunction / class

what do people make with this?

VIBE 1

Format dates and timestamps repeatedly in a web service or logging system where speed matters.

VIBE 2

Convert a date into a custom display format like 'Mon 02 Jan' or '2006-01-02'.

VIBE 3

Output dates in another language by supplying custom month and weekday names.

VIBE 4

Write formatted timestamps directly to a file or network connection.

what's the stack?

Go

how it stacks up fr

gastownhall/strftime0verflowme/alarm-clock0verflowme/seclists
LanguageCSS
Last pushed2026-06-082022-10-032020-05-03
MaintenanceMaintainedDormantDormant
Setup difficultyeasyeasyeasy
Complexity2/52/51/5
Audiencedevelopervibe coderops devops

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

how do i run it?

Difficulty · easy time til it works · 5min

in plain english

This is a Go library that formats dates and times using pattern strings, the kind of thing you'd use when you need to turn a date like "January 2, 2006" into a specific format like "2006-01-02" or "Mon 02 Jan" for display in your app or API. The library is built for speed, especially when you're using the same format pattern over and over. You set up the pattern once (say, %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S), and then reuse it many times without re-parsing that pattern every single time. Under the hood, it pre-compiles the pattern so formatting becomes really fast. The benchmarks show it's significantly faster than other Go date-formatting libraries, sometimes 3, 10x quicker depending on how you use it. The library supports a huge range of format codes, everything from %Y for the full year to %A for the full weekday name to %z for timezone offsets. You can also suppress leading zeros with a - flag (e.g., %-m gives "1" instead of "01"). If you need to output dates in another language, you can provide your own month and weekday names. There's even support for less common patterns like milliseconds (%L) or Unix timestamps (%s) that you can add yourself. You'd use this if you're building a web service, logging system, or any application where you format dates repeatedly, especially if performance matters. The library gives you flexibility too: you can write formatted dates to a file, a network connection, or just get back a string. The README doesn't claim to be a full tutorial, but the API is straightforward: create a formatter with New(), then call Format() or FormatString() as needed.

prompts (copy fr)

prompt 1
Show me how to use this Go strftime library to format a timestamp as 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'.
prompt 2
Help me set up a reusable formatter with New() so I'm not re-parsing the same date pattern on every request.
prompt 3
Explain how to suppress leading zeros in month or day output using the '-' flag in this library.
prompt 4
Walk me through adding a custom format code for milliseconds to this strftime library.
prompt 5
Compare how this library's pre-compiled pattern approach makes it faster than typical Go date formatters.

Frequently asked questions

what is strftime fr?

A fast Go library for formatting dates and times using strftime-style pattern strings, pre-compiled for speed when reused.

Is strftime actively maintained?

Maintained — commit in last 6 months (last push 2026-06-08).

How hard is strftime to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is strftime for?

Mainly developer.

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