Python resolution of datetime.now()

Question

from datetime import datetime
import time
for i in range(1000):
    curr_time  = datetime.now()
    print(curr_time)
    time.sleep(0.0001)

I was testing the resolution of datetime.now(). Since it supposes to output in microsecond, I expected that each print will be different.

However, I always get something like that.

...
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.212073
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
2015-07-10 22:38:47.213074
...

Why does that happen? Is there any way that I can get an accurate timestamp down to the microsecond? Actually I don't need microseconds, but it would be nice to get 0.1ms resolution.

=== UPDATE ====

I compared it with using time.perf_counter() and adding to the starting datetime from datetime import datetime, timedelta import time

datetime0 = datetime.now()
t0 = time.perf_counter()
for i in range(1000):
    print('datetime.now(): ', datetime.now())
    print('time.perf_counter(): ', datetime0 + timedelta(0, time.perf_counter()-t0))
    print('\n')

    time.sleep(0.000001)

I am not sure how 'accurate' it really is, but the resolution is at least higher.... it doesn't seems to matter as my computer cannot even print at a speed that high. For my purpose, which I simply need different timestamps to distinguish different entries, this is good enough for me.

...
datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.010377
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.010352


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.010377
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.010545


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.010377
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.010745


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.011377
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.010961


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.011377
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.011155


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.011377
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.011369


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.011377
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.011596


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.011829


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012026


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012232


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012424


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012619


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013380
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.012844


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013380
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013044


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013380
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013242


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013380
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013437


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013380
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013638


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.013903


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014125


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014328


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014526


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014379
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014721


datetime.now():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.015381
time.perf_counter():  2015-07-10 23:24:18.014919

...

Answer 1

This may be a limitation of time.sleep on your system, rather than datetime.now()... or possibly both. What OS and what version and distribution of Python are you running on?

Your system may not offer the "subsecond precision" mentioned in the time.sleep docs:

sleep(...)
    sleep(seconds)

    Delay execution for a given number of seconds.  The argument may be
    a floating point number for subsecond precision.

On Linux 3.x on amd64 with CPython 2.7, I get something pretty close to the 0.0001 time steps that you intended:

2015-07-10 19:58:24.353711
2015-07-10 19:58:24.353879
2015-07-10 19:58:24.354052
2015-07-10 19:58:24.354227
2015-07-10 19:58:24.354401
2015-07-10 19:58:24.354577
2015-07-10 19:58:24.354757
2015-07-10 19:58:24.354938