# Working with Timestamps in Python

The SF timestamp is formatted as UNIX timestamp (UTC) with millisecond precision. For our Python scripting engine, this looks like an ordinary integer. To transform a single timestamp into a date object, use the following snippet:

```
import datetime as dt
from dateutil.tz import gettz
dt.datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp / 1000).astimezone(gettz('Europe/Vienna'))
```

If you want to know more about datetime objects in Python, check out the [documentation](https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/datetime.html).

{% hint style="warning" %}
**Note,** that the above code does not work for a list of timestamps and depending on your use case you maybe want to use a different package for working with date-time.\
If you vectorize the above code, keep in mind that you will often have a lot of rows, so having a fast implementation here is the key to a well performing script.
{% endhint %}

To use a Python date object outside a script, define a script result variable with data type either "timestamp" or "string". Using "string" has the advantage of formatting the date-time object as you like but when using a timestamp the widget will adjust the representation to the displayed time frame. Use the following code snippets to correctly format the date-objects to meet the correct output format requirements:

String as output,

```
outputString = pythonDateTimeObj.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
#or
outputString = pythonDateTimeObj.isoformat()
```

Timestamp as output,

```
outputTimestamp = pythonDateTimeObj.timestamp() * 1000
```


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