'What is the time format used in KML files?

I am parsing a KML file on the iPhone, and I need to know what the time format of this string from the KML file is: 2011-05-16T08:00:59Z.

I think it is somewhere along the lines of the following, but I don't know what the Z stands for: YYYY-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.

objective-cxmltimestampkmltime-format


Solution 1:[1]

This is ISO 8601. The Z stands for Zulu time, also called UTC or GMT, i.e. the +0 timezone.

Solution 2:[2]

I use this in Python to convert Django objects into KML TimeStamp (notice the capital S in TimeStamp - that threw me for a while):

from datetime import datetime
from pytz import timezone

# Access the Date Time of the created object
dtg = str(loc.created_at)

# Import the Django timestamp (which includes miliseconds)
datetime_obj = datetime.strptime(dtg, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f+00:00")
# Convert it to UTC Format
datetime_obj_utc = datetime_obj.replace(tzinfo=timezone('UTC'))

# Convert it to Zulu time
date_time = datetime_obj_utc.strftime('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')

# Build the KML output
output += '  <Placemark><name>Feature</name>\n'
output += '      <TimeStamp><when>'+date_time+'</when></TimeStamp>\n'
...

Sources

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Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 phihag
Solution 2 JayCrossler

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