Date and Time

Last update on February 28 2020 12:12:15 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

The datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times in both simple and complex ways.

Basic datetime objects usage:

The datetime module contains three primary types of objects - date, time, and datetime.

Date:

import datetime
today = datetime.date.today()
new_year = datetime.date(2019, 1, 1)
print(new_year)

Output:

2019-01-01

Time:

import datetime
#Time object
noon = datetime.time(12, 0, 0)
print(noon)

Output:

12:00:00

Date Time:

import datetime
# Current datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()
print(now)

Output:

2019-11-01 06:16:18.526734

Date Time:

import datetime
# Datetime object
millenium_turn = datetime.datetime(2019, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0)
print(millenium_turn)

Output:

2019-01-01 00:00:00

Iterate over dates:

Print from a start date to some end date.

import datetime

# The size of each step in days
day_delta = datetime.timedelta(days=1)

start_date = datetime.date.today()
end_date = start_date + 7*day_delta

for i in range((end_date - start_date).days):
    print(start_date + i*day_delta)

Output:

Computing time differences:

The timedelta module is used to compute differences between times:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
now = datetime.now()
then = datetime(2019, 5, 23)
print(then)

Output:

2019-05-23 00:00:00

Specifying time is optional when creating a new datetime object

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
now = datetime.now()
then = datetime(2019, 5, 23)
delta = now-then
print(delta)

Output:

162 days, 9:10:42.599772

delta is of type timedelta:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
now = datetime.now()
then = datetime(2019, 5, 23)
delta = now-then
print(delta.days)
# 60
print(delta.seconds)
# 40826

Output:

162
33296

To get n day's after and n day's before date we could use:

n day's after date:

from datetime import date, timedelta

current_date = date.today().isoformat()   
days_after = (date.today()+timedelta(days=30)).isoformat()  

print("\nCurrent Date: ",current_date)
print("30 days after current date : ",days_after)

Output:

Current Date:  2019-11-02
30 days after current date :  2019-12-02

n day's before date:

from datetime import date, timedelta

current_date = date.today().isoformat()   
days_before = (date.today()-timedelta(days=30)).isoformat()

print("\nCurrent Date: ",current_date)
print("30 days before current date: ",days_before)

Output:

Current Date:  2019-11-02
30 days before current date:  2019-10-03

Converting timestamp to date time:

The datetime module can convert a POSIX timestamp to a ITC datetime object.

The Epoch is January 1st, 1970 midnight.

import time
from datetime import datetime
seconds_since_epoch=time.time()  #1469182681.709

utc_date=datetime.utcfromtimestamp(seconds_since_epoch)
print(utc_date)

Output:

2019-11-01 09:53:20.657171

Simple date arithmetic:

import datetime

today = datetime.date.today()
print('Today:', today)

yesterday = today - datetime.timedelta(days=1)
print('Yesterday:', yesterday)

tomorrow = today + datetime.timedelta(days=1)
print('Tomorrow:', tomorrow)

print('Time between tomorrow and yesterday:', tomorrow - yesterday)

Output:

Today: 2019-11-01
Yesterday: 2019-10-31
Tomorrow: 2019-11-02
Time between tomorrow and yesterday: 2 days, 0:00:00

Subtracting months from a date:

import calendar
from datetime import date

def monthdelta(date, delta):
    m, y = (date.month+delta) % 12, date.year + ((date.month)+delta-1) // 12
    if not m: m = 12
    d = min(date.day, calendar.monthrange(y, m)[1])
    return date.replace(day=d,month=m, year=y)

next_month = monthdelta(date.today(), 1) #datetime.date(2019, 10, 23)
print(next_month)

Output:

2019-12-01

Using the dateutils module:

import datetime
import dateutil.relativedelta

d = datetime.datetime.strptime("2019-03-31", "%Y-%m-%d")
d2 = d - dateutil.relativedelta.relativedelta(months=1)  #datetime.datetime(2019, 2, 28, 0, 0)
print(d2)

Output:

2019-02-28 00:00:00

Switching between time zones:

To switch between time zones, we need datetime objects that are timezone-aware.

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil import tz

utc = tz.tzutc()
local = tz.tzlocal()

utc_now = datetime.utcnow()
utc_now # Not timezone-aware.

utc_now = utc_now.replace(tzinfo=utc)
utc_now # Timezone-aware.

local_now = utc_now.astimezone(local)
local_now # Converted to local time.
print(local_now)

Output:

2019-11-01 10:10:09.685012+00:00

Fuzzy datetime parsing (extracting datetime out of a text):

from dateutil.parser import parse

dt = parse("Today is January 1, 2019 at 8:21:00AM", fuzzy=True)
print(dt)

Output:

2019-01-01 08:21:00

Get an ISO 8601 timestamp:

Without timezone, with microseconds:

from datetime import datetime

print (datetime.now().isoformat())

Output:

2019-11-01T10:42:00.720818

With timezone, with microseconds:

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.tz import tzlocal

print (datetime.now(tzlocal()).isoformat())

Output:

2019-11-01T10:46:20.965506+00:00

With timezone, without microseconds:

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.tz import tzlocal

print (datetime.now(tzlocal()).replace(microsecond=0).isoformat())

Output:

2019-11-01T10:49:58+00:00

Parsing a string with a short time zone name into a timr zone aware datetime object:

from dateutil import tz
from dateutil.parser import parse

ET = tz.gettz('US/Eastern')
CT = tz.gettz('US/Central')
MT = tz.gettz('US/Mountain')
PT = tz.gettz('US/Pacific')

us_tzinfos = {'CST': CT, 'CDT': CT,
              'EST': ET, 'EDT': ET,
              'MST': MT, 'MDT': MT,
              'PST': PT, 'PDT': PT}

dt_est = parse('2018-1-2 04:00:00 EST', tzinfos=us_tzinfos)
dt_pst = parse('2019-3-11 16:00:00 PST', tzinfos=us_tzinfos)
print (dt_est)
print (dt_pst)

Output:

2018-01-02 04:00:00-05:00
2019-03-11 16:00:00-07:00

Parsing an arbitrary ISO 8601 timestamp with minimal libraries:

Python has only limited support for parsing ISO 8601 timestamps and for strptime you need to know exactly what format it is in. The stringification of a datetime is an ISO 8601 timestamp, with space as a separator and 6 digit fraction:

import datetime
print (str(datetime.datetime(2019, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, 555555)))

Output:

2019-07-22 09:25:59.555555

but if the fraction is 0, no fractional part is output

import datetime
print(str(datetime.datetime(2019, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, 0)))

Output:

2019-07-22 09:25:59.555555

Parsing a string into a timezone aware datetime object:

Python 3.2+ has support for %z format when parsing a string into a datetime object.

UTC offset in the form +HHMM or -HHMM (empty string if the object is naive).

import datetime
dt = datetime.datetime.strptime("2019-04-15T08:27:18-0500", "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z")
print(dt)

Output:

2019-04-15 08:27:18-05:00

Fixed Offset Time Zones

from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
JST = timezone(timedelta(hours=+9))

dt = datetime(2019, 1, 1, 12, 0, 0, tzinfo=JST)
print(dt)
# 2019-01-01 12:00:00+09:00

print(dt.tzname())
# UTC+09:00

dt = datetime(2019, 1, 1, 12, 0, 0, tzinfo=timezone(timedelta(hours=9), 'JST'))
print(dt.tzname)
# 'JST'

Output:

2019-01-01 12:00:00+09:00
UTC+09:00
<built-in method tzname of datetime.datetime object at 0x7f91a9437360>

Zones with daylight savings time using third party library:

Use the tz.gettz() method to get a time zone object, which can then be passed directly to the datetime constructor:

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil import tz
local = tz.gettz() # Local time
PT = tz.gettz('US/Pacific') # Pacific time

dt_l = datetime(2019, 1, 1, 12, tzinfo=local) # I am in EST
dt_pst = datetime(2019, 1, 1, 12, tzinfo=PT)
dt_pdt = datetime(2019, 7, 1, 12, tzinfo=PT) # DST is handled automatically
print(dt_l)
# 2019-01-01 12:00:00-05:00
print(dt_pst)
# 2019-01-01 12:00:00-08:00
print(dt_pdt)
# 2019-07-01 12:00:00-07:00

Output:

2019-01-01 12:00:00+00:00
2019-01-01 12:00:00-08:00
2019-07-01 12:00:00-07:00

List of the Date format codes:

Directive

Meaning

Example

Notes

Weekday as locale’s abbreviated name.

Sun, Mon, …, Sat (en_US); So, Mo, …, Sa (de_DE)

(1)

Weekday as locale’s full name.

unday, Monday, …, Saturday (en_US); Sonntag, Montag, …, Samstag (de_DE)

(1)

Weekday as a decimal number, where 0 is Sunday and 6 is Saturday.

0, 1, …, 6

Day of the month as a zero-padded decimal number.

01, 02, …, 31

(9)

Month as locale’s abbreviated name.

Jan, Feb, …, Dec (en_US); Jan, Feb, …, Dez (de_DE)

(1)

Month as locale’s full name.

January, February, …, December (en_US); Januar, Februar, …, Dezember (de_DE)

(1)

Month as a zero-padded decimal number.

01, 02, …, 12

(9)

Year without century as a zero-padded decimal number.

00, 01, …, 99

(9)

Year with century as a decimal number.

0001, 0002, …, 2013, 2014, …, 9998, 9999

(2)

Hour (24-hour clock) as a zero-padded decimal number.

00, 01, …, 23

(9)

Hour (12-hour clock) as a zero-padded decimal number.

01, 02, …, 12

(9)

Locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM.

AM, PM (en_US); am, pm (de_DE)

(1), (3)

Minute as a zero-padded decimal number.

00, 01, …, 59

(9)

Second as a zero-padded decimal number.

00, 01, …, 59

(4), (9)

Microsecond as a decimal number, zero-padded on the left.

000000, 000001, …, 999999

(5)

UTC offset in the form ±HHMM[SS[.ffffff]] (empty string if the object is naive).

(empty), +0000, -0400, +1030, +063415, -030712.345216

(6)

Time zone name (empty string if the object is naive).

(empty), UTC, EST, CST

Day of the year as a zero-padded decimal number.

001, 002, …, 366

(9)

Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a zero padded decimal number. All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0.

00, 01, …, 53

(7), (9)

Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number. All days in a new year preceding the first Monday are considered to be in week 0.

00, 01, …, 53

(7), (9)

Locale’s appropriate date and time representation.

Tue Aug 16 21:30:00 1988 (en_US); Di 16 Aug 21:30:00 1988 (de_DE)

(1)

Locale’s appropriate date representation.

08/16/88 (None); 08/16/1988 (en_US); 16.08.1988 (de_DE)

(1)

Locale’s appropriate time representation.

21:30:00 (en_US); 21:30:00 (de_DE)

(1)

A literal '%' character.

Test your Python skills with w3resource's quiz

Python: Tips of the Day

Python: Chaining Of Comparison Operators

Example:

n = 20
test = 1 < n < 30
print(test)

Output:

True

Example:

test = 1 > n <= 9
print(test)

Output:

False

Source : https://www.w3resource.com/python/python-date-and-time.php

Previousmap() Function NextPython datetime()

Last updated 5 years ago

hashtagBasic datetime objects usage:

hashtagIterate over dates:

hashtagComputing time differences:

hashtagn day's after date:

hashtagn day's before date:

hashtagConverting timestamp to date time:

hashtagSimple date arithmetic:

hashtagSubtracting months from a date:

hashtagUsing the dateutils module:

hashtagSwitching between time zones:

hashtagFuzzy datetime parsing (extracting datetime out of a text):

hashtagWithout timezone, with microseconds:

hashtagWith timezone, with microseconds:

hashtagWith timezone, without microseconds:

hashtagParsing a string with a short time zone name into a timr zone aware datetime object:

hashtagParsing an arbitrary ISO 8601 timestamp with minimal libraries:

hashtagParsing a string into a timezone aware datetime object:

hashtagZones with daylight savings time using third party library:

hashtagList of the Date format codes:

hashtagPython: Tips of the Day

Basic datetime objects usage:

Iterate over dates:

Computing time differences:

n day's after date:

n day's before date:

Converting timestamp to date time:

Simple date arithmetic:

Subtracting months from a date:

Using the dateutils module:

Switching between time zones:

Fuzzy datetime parsing (extracting datetime out of a text):

Without timezone, with microseconds:

With timezone, with microseconds:

With timezone, without microseconds:

Parsing a string with a short time zone name into a timr zone aware datetime object:

Parsing an arbitrary ISO 8601 timestamp with minimal libraries:

Parsing a string into a timezone aware datetime object:

Zones with daylight savings time using third party library:

List of the Date format codes:

Python: Tips of the Day