Python Date and Time

Introduction

Python provides powerful libraries for working with dates and times, including datetime, time, and calendar. These libraries allow you to perform a wide range of operations, such as getting the current date and time, formatting dates and times, performing arithmetic on dates and times, and much more.

Key Libraries

• datetime: Provides classes for manipulating dates and times.
• time: Provides time-related functions.
• calendar: Provides functions for working with calendars.

datetime Module

Getting the Current Date and Time

The datetime module provides the datetime class, which includes methods for getting the current date and time.

Example

import datetime

# Current date and time
now = datetime.datetime.now()
print(now)  # Output: 2023-06-18 15:28:30.774148

# Current date
today = datetime.date.today()
print(today)  # Output: 2023-06-18

Creating Date and Time Objects

You can create date and time objects using the datetime class.

Example

# Creating a date object
date_obj = datetime.date(2023, 6, 18)
print(date_obj)  # Output: 2023-06-18

# Creating a time object
time_obj = datetime.time(15, 28, 30)
print(time_obj)  # Output: 15:28:30

# Creating a datetime object
datetime_obj = datetime.datetime(2023, 6, 18, 15, 28, 30)
print(datetime_obj)  # Output: 2023-06-18 15:28:30

Formatting Dates and Times

The strftime method is used to format date and time objects into readable strings.

Example

# Formatting datetime object to string
formatted_date = now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
print(formatted_date)  # Output: 2023-06-18 15:28:30

# Different format
formatted_date = now.strftime("%A, %B %d, %Y")
print(formatted_date)  # Output: Sunday, June 18, 2023

Parsing Dates and Times

The strptime method is used to parse strings into date and time objects.

Example

date_string = "2023-06-18 15:28:30"
parsed_date = datetime.datetime.strptime(date_string, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
print(parsed_date)  # Output: 2023-06-18 15:28:30

Date and Time Arithmetic

You can perform arithmetic operations on date and time objects using timedelta.

Example

# Adding 5 days to the current date
future_date = today + datetime.timedelta(days=5)
print(future_date)  # Output: 2023-06-23

# Subtracting 2 hours from the current time
past_time = now - datetime.timedelta(hours=2)
print(past_time)  # Output: 2023-06-18 13:28:30.774148

time Module

The time module provides functions for working with time, such as getting the current time, sleeping for a specified period, and measuring elapsed time.

Example

import time

# Getting the current time in seconds since the Epoch
current_time = time.time()
print(current_time)  # Output: 1671405670.774148

# Converting seconds to a readable format
local_time = time.localtime(current_time)
formatted_time = time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", local_time)
print(formatted_time)  # Output: 2023-06-18 15:28:30

# Sleeping for 2 seconds
time.sleep(2)
print("Slept for 2 seconds")

calendar Module

The calendar module provides functions for working with calendars, such as printing a calendar for a specific month or year.

Example

import calendar

# Printing the calendar for June 2023
cal = calendar.month(2023, 6)
print(cal)

# Checking if 2024 is a leap year
is_leap = calendar.isleap(2024)
print(is_leap)  # Output: True

# Counting the number of leap years between 2000 and 2024
leap_days = calendar.leapdays(2000, 2024)
print(leap_days)  # Output: 6

Output

     June 2023
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
           1  2  3  4
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30

Conclusion

Python’s datetime, time, and calendar modules provide a comprehensive set of tools for working with dates and times. Whether you need to get the current date and time, format dates and times, perform arithmetic on date and time objects, or work with calendars, these modules have you covered. Understanding these modules is essential for handling date and time-related tasks in Python effectively.