The C library's time thing seems very messy.  I gave up and wiki the Python time thing. 



Python Standard Library » 15. Generic Operating System Services » 15.3. time — Time access and conversions

http://docs.python.org/2/library/time.html

This module provides various time-related functions. For related functionality, see also the datetime and calendar modules.

Although this module is always available, not all functions are available on all platforms. Most of the functions defined in this module call platform C library functions with the same name. It may sometimes be helpful to consult the platform documentation, because the semantics of these functions varies among platforms.

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Python Standard Library » 8. Data Types »  8.1. datetime — Basic date and time types

http://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html#module-datetime

New in version 2.3.

The datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times in both simple and complex ways. While date and time arithmetic is supported, the focus of the implementation is on efficient attribute extraction for output formatting and manipulation. For related functionality, see also the time and calendar modules.

There are two kinds of date and time objects: “naive” and “aware”.

An aware object has sufficient knowledge of applicable algorithmic and political time adjustments, such as time zone and daylight saving time information, to locate itself relative to other aware objects. An aware object is used to represent a specific moment in time that is not open to interpretation [1].

A naive object does not contain enough information to unambiguously locate itself relative to other date/time objects. Whether a naive object represents Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), local time, or time in some other timezone is purely up to the program, just like it’s up to the program whether a particular number represents metres, miles, or mass. Naive objects are easy to understand and to work with, at the cost of ignoring some aspects of reality.

For applications requiring aware objects, datetime and time objects have an optional time zone information attribute, tzinfo, that can be set to an instance of a subclass of the abstract tzinfo class. These tzinfo objects capture information about the offset from UTC time, the time zone name, and whether Daylight Saving Time is in effect. Note that no concrete tzinfo classes are supplied by the datetime module. Supporting timezones at whatever level of detail is required is up to the application. The rules for time adjustment across the world are more political than rational, and there is no standard suitable for every application.

The datetime module exports the following constants:

datetime.MINYEAR
The smallest year number allowed in a date or datetime object. MINYEAR is 1.

datetime.MAXYEAR
The largest year number allowed in a date or datetime object. MAXYEAR is 9999.

See also
Module calendar
General calendar related functions.
Module time
Time access and conversions.


8.1.1. Available Types

class datetime.date
An idealized naive date, assuming the current Gregorian calendar always was, and always will be, in effect. Attributes: year, month, and day.

class datetime.time
An idealized time, independent of any particular day, assuming that every day has exactly 24*60*60 seconds (there is no notion of “leap seconds” here). Attributes: hour, minute, second, microsecond, and tzinfo.

class datetime.datetime
A combination of a date and a time. Attributes: year, month, day, hour, minute, second, microsecond, and tzinfo.

class datetime.timedelta
A duration expressing the difference between two date, time, or datetime instances to microsecond resolution.

class datetime.tzinfo
An abstract base class for time zone information objects. These are used by the datetime and time classes to provide a customizable notion of time adjustment (for example, to account for time zone and/or daylight saving time).

Objects of these types are immutable.

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