Python DateTime Module
This Module provides sufficient features related to date and time. Its a quite useful module in python.
Basic Examples
import datetime print(datetime.datetime.today()) # This prints today's date with time print(datetime.datetime.now()) # This prints present date with time with more precise than datetime.datetime.today() print(datetime.datetime.min) #This prints initial date with time print(datetime.datetime.max) #This prints max date with time print(datetime.datetime.today().year) #This prints year of date object print(datetime.datetime.today().month) #This prints month of date object print(datetime.datetime.today().day) #This prints day of date object print(datetime.date(2010,12,15)) #-->> 2010-12-15 #PYTHON OUTPUT 2019-01-22 17:18:21.711971 2019-01-22 17:18:21.712027 0001-01-01 00:00:00 9999-12-31 23:59:59.999999 2019 1 22 2010-12-15
dateTime.date() syntax
datetime.date(YEAR, MONTH, DAY)
For string representation of Date-Time use strftime() method this returns date object as string.
import datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()
print(now.strftime("%d")) # This prints Day
print(now.strftime("%B")) # This prints Month's fullname
print(now.strftime("%Y")) # This prints full year
print(format(now.strftime("%d-%B-%Y")))
print("Today's date is: {}".format(now.strftime("%d-%B-%Y")))
#PYTHON OUTPUT
22
January
2019
22-January-2019
Today's date is: 22-January-2019
Convert String to time
import datetime date="2018-12-11" formatted_date=datetime.datetime.strptime(date, "%Y-%m-%d") print(formatted_date) #PYTHON OUTPUT 2018-12-11 00:00:00
Difference between dates
Finding a difference in dates using date object
import datetime f_date = datetime.date(2008, 8, 18) t_date = datetime.date(2010, 8, 18) diff_date = t_date-f_date print(diff_date) #PYTHON OUTPUT 730 days, 0:00:00
The above method gives use difference in terms of days. but what if we want the difference in hours, minutes, months or years.
Then we need to use python DateTime modules strptime() method. This will convert the string to a python DateTime object.
from datetime import datetime
format = '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f'
date1 = '2008-02-01 01:01:01.001'
date2 = '2009-02-01 02:02:02.002'
f_date = datetime.strptime(date2, format)
t_date = datetime.strptime(date1, format)
date_diff = f_date-t_date
print("Date Difference: {}".format(date_diff))
print("Difference in Days: {} ".format(date_diff.days))
print("Difference in Microseconds: {} ".format(date_diff.microseconds))
print("Difference in Seconds: {} ".format(date_diff.seconds))
#PYTHON OUTPUT
Date Difference: 366 days, 1:01:01.001000
Difference in Days: 366
Difference in Microseconds: 1000
Difference in Seconds: 3661
Working with Python time module
This module is helpful in working with different time-related methods, timezone conversion and time manipulation.
Below describe some of the useful methods in time Module
Getting current time using the time module.
from time import gmtime, strftime print(gmtime()) #PYTHON OUTPUT time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=9, tm_min=39, tm_sec=56, tm_wday=4, tm_yday=25, tm_isdst=0)
gmtime() the method will print time in tuple form to convert this to readable string use strftime() method.
from time import gmtime, strftime
print(gmtime())
print(strftime("%I:%M:%S %p",gmtime()))
#PYTHON OUTPUT
09:39:56 AM
Note:
gmtime()method may not give precise time insisted we can uselocaltime()method for time accuracy.
from time import gmtime, strftime, localtime
print(strftime("%I:%M:%S %p",localtime()))
#PYTHON OUTPUT
03:14:00 PM
Creating a time object takes two arguments in strptime() method. This method converts time string to time object.
import time
new_time=time.strptime("12 december 2016 09:24:58 AM", "%d %B %Y %H:%M:%S %p")
print(new_time)
print(time.strftime("%I:%M:%S %p",new_time))
#PYTHON OUTPUT
time.struct_time(tm_year=2016, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=9, tm_min=24, tm_sec=58, tm_wday=0, tm_yday=347, tm_isdst=-1)
09:24:58 AM
For additional information of using DateTime, you can refer our article on DateTime module with programs and also link to python documentation provided.
