Python Working With Dates & Times

 

Working With Dates & Times

Datetime

Python has a built-in datetime module which provides convenient objects to work with dates and times.

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import datetime

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Datetime classes

Commonly used classes in the datetime module are:

• date class
• time class
• datetime class
• timedelta class

Working with 'date' class

Representing Date

A date object can be used to represent any valid date (year, month and day).

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import datetime

date_object = datetime.date(2019, 4, 13)

print(date_object)

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Output

2019-04-13

Date Object

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from datetime import date

date_obj = date(2022, 2, 31)

print(date_obj)

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Output

ValueError: day is out of range for month

Today’s Date

Class method

today()

returns a date object with today’s date.

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import datetime

date_object = datetime.date.today()

print(date_object)

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Output

2021-02-05

Attributes of Date Object

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from datetime import date

date_object = date(2019, 4, 13)

print(date_object.year)

print(date_object.month)

print(date_object.day)

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Output

2019

4

13

Working with ‘time’ Class

Representing Time

A time object can be used to represent any valid time (hours, minutes and seconds).

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from datetime import time

time_object = time(11, 34, 56)

print(time_object)

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Output

11:34:56

Attributes of Time Object

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from datetime import time

time_object = time(11, 34, 56)

print(time_object)

print(time_object.hour)

print(time_object.minute)

print(time_object.second)

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Output

11:34:56

11

34

56

Working with ‘datetime’ Class

Datetime

The datetime class represents a valid date and time together.

Example - 1

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from datetime import datetime

date_time_obj = datetime(2018, 11, 28, 10, 15, 26)

print(date_time_obj.year)

print(date_time_obj.month)

print(date_time_obj.hour)

print(date_time_obj.minute)

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Output

2018

11

10

15

Example - 2 It gives the current date and time

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import datetime

datetime_object = datetime.datetime.now()

print(datetime_object)

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Output

2021-02-05 09:26:08.077473

DateTime object

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from datetime import datetime

date_time_obj = datetime(2018, 11, 28)

print(date_time_obj)

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Output

2018-11-28 00:00:00

Formatting Datetime

The datetime classes have

strftime(format)

method to format the datetime into any required format like

• mm/dd/yyyy

• dd-mm-yyyy

  Format Specifier	Meaning	Example
  %y	Year without century as a zero-padded decimal number	19, 20, ...
  %Y	Year with century as a decimal number	2019, 2020, ...
  %b	Month as abbreviated name	Jan, Feb, ...
  %B	Month as full name	January, February
  %m	Month as a zero-padded decimal number	01, 02, …, 12
  %d	Day of the month as a zero-padded decimal number	01, 02, …, 31
  %a	Weekday as abbreviated name	Sun, Mon, ...
  %A	Weekday as full name	Sunday, Monday, ...
  %H	Hour (24-hour clock) as a zero-padded decimal number	00, 01, …, 23
  %I	Hour (12-hour clock) as a zero-padded decimal number	01, 02, …, 12
  %p	AM or PM	AM, PM
  %M	Minute as a zero-padded decimal number	00, 01, …, 59
  %S	Second as a zero-padded decimal number	00, 01, …, 59

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from datetime import datetime

now = datetime.now()

formatted_datetime_1 = now.strftime("%d %b %Y %I:%M:%S %p")

print(formatted_datetime_1)

formatted_datetime_2 = now.strftime("%d/%m/%Y, %H:%M:%S")

print(formatted_datetime_2)

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Output

05 Feb 2021 09:26:50 AM

05/02/2021, 09:26:50

Parsing Datetime

The class method

strptime()

creates a datetime object from a given string representing date and time.

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from datetime import datetime

date_string = "28 November, 2018"

print(date_string)

date_object = datetime.strptime(date_string, "%d %B, %Y")

print(date_object)

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Output

28 November, 2018

2018-11-28 00:00:00

Working with ‘timedelta’ Class

Timedelta object represents duration.

Example 1

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from datetime import timedelta

delta = timedelta(days=365, hours=4)

print(delta)

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Output

365 days, 4:00:00

Example 2

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from datetime import timedelta, datetime

delta = timedelta(days=365)

current_datetime = datetime.now()

print(current_datetime)

next_year_datetime = current_datetime + delta

print(next_year_datetime)

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Output

2021-02-05 09:28:30.239095

2022-02-05 09:28:30.239095

Calculating Time Difference

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import datetime

dt1 = datetime.datetime(2021, 2, 5)

dt2 = datetime.datetime(2022, 1, 1)

duration = dt2 - dt1

print(duration)

print(type(duration))

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Output

330 days, 0:00:00

<class 'datetime.timedelta'>