Python datetime

Python has a module named datetime to work with dates and times.

It provides a variety of classes for representing and manipulating dates and times, as well as for formatting and parsing dates and times in a variety of formats.

Example 1: Get Current Date and Time

import datetime # get the current date and time now = datetime.datetime.now() print(now)

Output

2022-12-27 08:26:49.219717

Here, we have imported the datetime module using the import datetime statement.

One of the classes defined in the datetime module is the datetime class.

We then used the now() method to create a datetime object containing the current local date and time.

Example 2: Get Current Date

import datetime # get current date current_date = datetime.date.today() print(current_date)

Output

2022-12-27

In the above example, we have used the today() method defined in the date class to get a datetime object containing the current local date.

Attributes of datetime Module

We can use the dir() function to get a list containing all attributes of a module.

import datetime print(dir(datetime))

Output

['MAXYEAR', 'MINYEAR', '__builtins__', '__cached__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__loader__', '__name__', '__package__', '__spec__', '_divide_and_round', 'date', 'datetime', 'datetime_CAPI', 'time', 'timedelta', 'timezone', 'tzinfo']

Among all the attributes of datetime module, the most commonly used classes in the datetime module are:

Python datetime.date Class

In Python, we can instantiate date objects from the date class. A date object represents a date (year, month and day).

Example 3: Date object to represent a date

import datetime d = datetime.date(2022, 12, 25) print(d)

Output

2022-12-25

Here, date() in the above example is a constructor of the date class. The constructor takes three arguments: year , month and day .

Import Only date Class

We can only import the date class from the datetime module. For example,

from datetime import date d = date(2022, 12, 25) print(d)

Output

2022-12-25

Here, from datetime import date only imports the date class from the datetime module.

Example 4: Get the current date using today()

We can create a date object containing the current date by using the class method named today() . For example,

from datetime import date # today() to get current date todays_date = date.today() print("Today's date example-date-timestamp">Example 5: Get the date from a timestamp 
We can also create date objects from a timestamp.
 
A UNIX timestamp is the number of seconds between a particular date and January 1, 1970, at UTC. You can convert a timestamp to a date using the fromtimestamp() method.
 
from datetime import date timestamp = date.fromtimestamp(1326244364) print("Date print-date">Example 6: Print today's year, month and day 
We can get year, month, day, day of the week, etc. from the date object easily. For example,
 
from datetime import date # date object of today's date today = date.today() print("Current year:", today.year) print("Current month:", today.month) print("Current day:", today.day)


Output


Current year: 2022 Current month: 12 Current day: 27


Python datetime.time Class


A time object instantiated from the time class represents the local time.


Example 7: Time object to represent time


from datetime import time # time(hour = 0, minute = 0, second = 0) a = time() print(a) # time(hour, minute and second) b = time(11, 34, 56) print(b) # time(hour, minute and second) c = time(hour = 11, minute = 34, second = 56) print(c) # time(hour, minute, second, microsecond) d = time(11, 34, 56, 234566) print(d)


Output


a = 00:00:00 b = 11:34:56 c = 11:34:56 d = 11:34:56.234566


Example 8: Print hour, minute, second and microsecond


Once we create the time object, we can easily print its attributes such as hour , minute , etc. For example,


from datetime import time a = time(11, 34, 56) print("Hour =", a.hour) print("Minute =", a.minute) print("Second =", a.second) print("Microsecond block-inject-1" > 
Output
 
Hour = 11 Minute = 34 Second = 56 Microsecond = 0


Here, notice that we haven't passed the microsecond argument. Hence, its default value 0 is printed.


The datetime.datetime Class


The datetime module has a class named datetime that can contain information from both date and time objects.


Example 9: Python datetime object


from datetime import datetime # datetime(year, month, day) a = datetime(2022, 12, 28) print(a) # datetime(year, month, day, hour, minute, second, microsecond) b = datetime(2022, 12, 28, 23, 55, 59, 342380) print(b)


Output


2022-12-28 00:00:00 2022-12-28 23:55:59.342380


The first three arguments year , month and day in the datetime() constructor are mandatory.


Example 10: Print year, month, hour, minute and timestamp


from datetime import datetime a = datetime(2022, 12, 28, 23, 55, 59, 342380) print("Year =", a.year) print("Month =", a.month) print("Hour =", a.hour) print("Minute =", a.minute) print("Timestamp timedelta">Python datetime.timedelta Class 
A timedelta object represents the difference between two dates or times. For example,
 
from datetime import datetime, date # using date() t1 = date(year = 2018, month = 7, day = 12) t2 = date(year = 2017, month = 12, day = 23) t3 = t1 - t2 print("t3 =", t3) # using datetime() t4 = datetime(year = 2018, month = 7, day = 12, hour = 7, minute = 9, second = 33) t5 = datetime(year = 2019, month = 6, day = 10, hour = 5, minute = 55, second = 13) t6 = t4 - t5 print("t6 =", t6) print("Type of t3 =", type(t3)) print("Type of t6 example-difference-timedelta">Example 12: Difference between two timedelta objects 
from datetime import timedelta t1 = timedelta(weeks = 2, days = 5, hours = 1, seconds = 33) t2 = timedelta(days = 4, hours = 11, minutes = 4, seconds = 54) t3 = t1 - t2 print("t3 python-exec"> from datetime import timedelta t = timedelta(days = 5, hours = 1, seconds = 33, microseconds = 233423) print("Total seconds format-datetime">Python format datetime 
The way date and time are represented may be different in different places, organizations, etc. It's more common to use mm/dd/yyyy in the US, whereas dd/mm/yyyy is more common in the UK.
 
Python has strftime() and strptime() methods to handle this.
 
Python strftime() Method
 
The strftime() method is defined under classes date, datetime and time. The method creates a formatted string from a given date, datetime or time object.
 
Let's see an example.
 
from datetime import datetime # current date and time now = datetime.now() t = now.strftime("%H:%M:%S") print("Time:", t) s1 = now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S") # mm/dd/YY H:M:S format print("s1:", s1) s2 = now.strftime("%d/%m/%Y, %H:%M:%S") # dd/mm/YY H:M:S format print("s2:", s2)


Output


time: 04:34:52 s1: 12/26/2018, 04:34:52 s2: 26/12/2018, 04:34:52


Here, %Y , %m , %d , %H etc. are format codes. The strftime() method takes one or more format codes and returns a formatted string based on it.


In the above example, t , s1 and s2 are strings.


    
  
  • %Y - year [0001. 2018, 2019. 9999]
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  • %m - month [01, 02, . 11, 12]
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  • %d - day [01, 02, . 30, 31]
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  • %H - hour [00, 01, . 22, 23
    • 
  
  • %M - minute [00, 01, . 58, 59]
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  • %S - second [00, 01, . 58, 59]
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To learn more about strftime() and format codes, visit: Python strftime().


Python strptime() Method


The strptime() method creates a datetime object from a given string (representing date and time). For example,


from datetime import datetime date_string = "25 December, 2022" print("date_string =", date_string) # use strptime() to create date object date_object = datetime.strptime(date_string, "%d %B, %Y") print("date_object /python-programming/datetime/strptime">Python strptime().
 
Handling timezone in Python
 
Suppose, we are working on a project and need to display date and time based on their timezone.
 
Rather than trying to handle the timezone yourself, we suggest using a third-party pytZ module.
 
from datetime import datetime import pytz local = datetime.now() print("Local:", local.strftime("%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S")) tz_NY = pytz.timezone('America/New_York') datetime_NY = datetime.now(tz_NY) print("NY:", datetime_NY.strftime("%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S")) tz_London = pytz.timezone('Europe/London') datetime_London = datetime.now(tz_London) print("London:", datetime_London.strftime("%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S"))


Output


Local: 12/27/2022, 09:40:19 NY: 12/27/2022, 04:40:19 London: 12/27/2022, 09:40:19


Here, datetime_NY and datetime_London are datetime objects containing the current date and time of their respective timezone.


Also Read:


    
  
  • Python get current time
    • 
  
  • How to get current date and time in Python
    • 
  
  • Python time module
    • 



Table of Contents


    
  
  • Introduction
    • 
  
  • Example 1: Get Current Date and Time
    • 
  
  • Attributes of datetime Module
    • 
  
  • Python datetime.date Class
    • 
  
  • Example 3: Date object to represent a date
    • 
  
  • Example 5: Get the date from a timestamp
    • 
  
  • Example 6: Print today's year, month and day
    • 
  
  • Python datetime.time Class
    • 
  
  • Example 7: Time object to represent time
    • 
  
  • Example 8: Print hour, minute, second and microsecond
    • 
  
  • The datetime.datetime Class
    • 
  
  • Example 9: Python datetime object
    • 
  
  • Example 10: Print year, month, hour, minute and timestamp
    • 
  
  • Python datetime.timedelta Class
    • 
  
  • Example 12: Difference between two timedelta objects
    • 
  
  • Python format datetime
    • 
  
  • Python strftime() Method
    • 
  
  • Python strptime() Method
    • 
  
  • Handling timezone in Python
    •