Saving data with timestamps

Overview

In this lesson we are going to learn how to add a date and time to our data which is sometimes called a timestamp.
A timestamp records the current time that an event took place.
This becomes important later when we want to graph the data that we collected.
Computer settings are important with dates and times.
When we initially set up our Raspberry Pi, we need to define localisation options to be Melbourne, Australia.
The computer can then calculate our local time and even make allowances for daylight savings and atomic clock corrections.
It is also important that the Raspberry Pi is connected to the internet so that it can re-calibrate the onboard clock.
In python there is a special library called datetime that makes it easy to record and format dates and times.
In this lesson we will create a new program to get some experience with the datetime library before we add it back into our main program.

Learn how use the python datetime library.
Learn how to update our main program with the datetime library functions.
Learn how to verify that our data has saved correctly using the File Manager and Terminal.

In this example we will experiment with a new python library named datetime.
We will demonstrate how to get the current computer time, and also learn how to format the response.
More information on formatting the datetime output can also be obtained from W3Schools at the following URL: Python Dates (w3schools.com)

From the Raspberry Pi main menu drop down select Programming > Python3 (IDLE).