Python Date

The Program manipulation in Python involves the date and time. It’s not like checking up what time is it month python Program, it’s simply using the python program to manipulate date and time as an object through the built-in module called DateTime. This page is set to expose you to the fundamentals of how to work with Python Date.

At the end of this page, you’ll be good at Working with The Python Datetime Module. You’ll be learning the following:

• What is Python Date
• ItDate
• Time
• Datetime
• Tzinfo
• Timezones
• Date class Method
• Time class Method
• Datetime class method
• Operations in timedelta

Afterward, you’ll be all set for the python date-time operations

What is Python Datetime?

You already know the meaning of date and time in reality to be a parameter for measuring the duration of occurrences which ranges from microseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, months, years, and so on. However, Python date and time are not limited to measuring occurrences, they’re to be manipulated and worked with. The package that enables you to manipulate dates and times in Python is the DateTime module.

As mentioned earlier the Python Datetime is not actual data, it’s an object. Keep in mind that its manipulation is manipulating an object.

To further up, there are six main classes of the DateTime module,  they are:

Date

The date object is a set of values that involves the year, the month, the day, and a collection of pythonic functions that are ideal to handle them.

Time

A time object is structured in a way that it has a set of values ranging from the hour, the minutes, the second, the microsecond, and the time zone information. choosing these values appropriately. Any time format can be represented by an accurate choice of the parameters.

Datetime

Is a combination of the set values of date and set values of the time. Which it’s a new set of Values. will range from microsecond, second, minute, hours, months, year, and timezone information.

TimeDelta

It represents the difference between two date times. Time Delta is a set of three values which are days, seconds, and microseconds. The Timedelta is priceless in its usefulness when it comes to the arithmetic operation on datetimes. Because it eliminates some necessary worries of how many seconds make one day and leap years.

tzinfo

This is simply an object that provides time zone information.

TimeZone

This is a class that uses the tzinfo abstract as a fixed offset.

Now that you’ve grasped some clearance on the datetime components, let’s delve in

Operation on Date

The date class is used to create date objects in Python. When the object of the date class is created, it takes the after the date in the format YYYY-MM-DD. The construction of this class needs three compulsory arguments such as year, month, and date.

The Constructor syntax: class DateTime.date(year, month, day)

The three arguments must be in the following range

• MINYEAR <= year <= MAXYEAR

• 1 <= month <= 12

• 1 <= day <= number of days in the given month and year

Remember that, If the argument is not an integer(whole number) it will raise a TypeError and if it is outside the range, it’ll raise ValueError.

Example:

Python Input

# Python program to
# demonstrate date class
# import the date class
from datetime import date
# initializing constructor
# and passing arguments in the
# format year, month, date
my_date = date(1912, 10, 11)
print("Date passed as argument is", my_date)
# Uncommenting my_date = date(1996, 12, 39)
# will raise an ValueError as it is
# outside range
# uncommenting my_date = date('1996', 12, 11)
# will raise a TypeError as a string is
# passed instead of integer

Output:


Date passed as argument is 1912-10-11

Let’s get our current date

To get the current local date use the today() function of the date class. today() function comes with many attributes like a year, month, and day which can be printed individually.

Python Input

# Python program to
# print current date
from datetime import date
# calling the today
# function of date class
today = date.today()
print("Today's date is", today)
Output
Today's date is 2022-04-22

At the point of writing this, the current date was 2022-04-22

You can use the Timestamp

to get date objects from the timestamps method y=using the fromtimestamp() method. For the note, timestamp is the number of seconds from 1st January 1970 at UTC to a particular date.

Python Input

from datetime import datetime
# Getting Datetime from timestamp
date_time = datetime.fromtimestamp(1360239418)
print("Datetime from timestamp:", date_time)

Output:


Datetime from timestamp: 2013-02-07 13:16:58

Also you can convert date to string using two functions isoformat() and strftime().

Python Input

from datetime import date
# calling the today
# function of date class
today = date.today()
# Converting the date to the string
Str = date.isoformat(today)
print("String Representation", Str)
print(type(Str))

Output:


String Representation 2022-04-22
<class 'str'>

It’s important to know the list of the python Date class Method

List of Python Date Class Method

Timedelta class

As you already know that Python timedelta class is used for calculating differences in dates. Interestingly it is one of the easiest ways to manipulate date in Python.

The constructor syntax: class datetime.timedelta(days=0, seconds=0, microseconds=0, milliseconds=0, minutes=0, hours=0, weeks=0)

Returns : Date

Example

Python Input

# Timedelta function demonstration
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
# Using current time
ini_time_for_now = datetime.now()
# printing initial_date
print("initial_date", str(ini_time_for_now))
# Calculating future dates
# for two years
future_date_after_2yrs = ini_time_for_now + timedelta(days=730)
future_date_after_2days = ini_time_for_now + timedelta(days=2)
# printing calculated future_dates
print('future_date_after_2yrs:', str(future_date_after_2yrs))
print('future_date_after_2days:', str(future_date_after_2days))

Output:


initial_date 2022-04-22 13:11:16.489000
future_date_after_2yrs: 2024-04-21 13:11:16.489000
future_date_after_2days: 2022-04-24 13:11:16.489000

Let use the Timedelta to find the difference between two dates

Python Input

# Timedelta function demonstration
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
# Using current time
ini_time_for_now = datetime.now()
# printing initial_date
print("initial_date", str(ini_time_for_now))
# Some another datetime
new_final_time = ini_time_for_now + \
    timedelta(days=2)
# printing new final_date
print("new_final_time", str(new_final_time))
# printing calculated past_dates
print('Time difference:', str(new_final_time -
                              ini_time_for_now))

Output:


initial_date 2022-04-22 13:20:53.804000
new_final_time 2022-04-24 13:20:53.804000
Time difference: 2 days, 0:00:00

TimeDeltaIt Operators

The table below contains all the Operations supported by Python Timedelta

Format Datetime

Formatting Datetime is a very necessary skill in the python DateTime because the date representation may vary from place to place. For example in some countries, it can be dd-mm-yyyy and in other countries, it can be yyyy-mm-dd. You can format the Python Datetime using strptime and strftime functions.

Formatting Datetime using strptime

strftime() method returns a string representation of the given datetime format.

Example:

Python Input

# Python program to demonstrate
# strftime() function
from datetime import datetime as dt
# Getting current date and time
now = dt.now()
print("Without formatting", now)
# Example 1
s = now.strftime("%A %m %-Y")
print('\nExample 1:', s)
# Example 2
s = now.strftime("%a %-m %y")
print('\nExample 2:', s)
# Example 3
s = now.strftime("%-I %p %S")
print('\nExample 3:', s)
# Example 4
s = now.strftime("%H:%M:%S")
print('\nExample 4:', s)

Output:

Without formatting 2022-04-22 13:46:35.064000
Example 1: Friday 04 %-Y
Example 2: Fri %-m 22
Example 3: %-I PM 35
Example 4: 13:46:35

Python DateTime strptime

strptime() converts the given string to a datetime object.

Example

Python Input

# import datetime module from datetime
from datetime import datetime
# consider the time stamps from a list  in string
# format DD/MM/YY H:M:S.micros
time_data = ["25/05/99 02:35:8.023", "26/05/99 12:45:0.003",
             "27/05/99 07:35:5.523", "28/05/99 05:15:55.523"]
# format the string in the given format : day/month/year
# hours/minutes/seconds-micro seconds
format_data = "%d/%m/%y %H:%M:%S.%f"
# Using strptime with datetime we will format string
# into datetime
for i in time_data:
    print(datetime.strptime(i, format_data))

Output:

0099-05-25 02:35:08.230000
0099-05-26 12:45:00.300000
0099-05-27 07:35:05.523000
0099-05-28 05:15:55.523000

Handling Python DateTime timezone

Timezones in DateTime can be used in the case where one might want to display time according to the timezone of a specific region. This can be done using the pytz module of Python. This module serves the date-time conversion functionalities and helps users serving international client bases.

Example

Python Input

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: 14:19:05
s1: 04/22/2022, 14:19:05
s2: 22/04/2022, 14:19:05

Summary

Python date and time are not limited to measuring occurrences, they’re to be manipulated and worked with. The package that enables you to manipulate date and time in Python is the datetime module.

The package that enables you manipulate date and time in Python is the datetime module.

Formatting Datetime is a very necessary skill in the python datetime because the date representation may vary from place to place.

There are six main classes of the datetime module, they are:

• Date

• Time

• Datetime

• TimeDelta

• Tzinfo

• Time zone

At the end of this page you’ve learned the following:

• What is Python Date
• ItDate
• Time
• Datetime
• Tzinfo
• Timezones
• Date class Method
• Time class Method
• Datetime class method
• Operations in timedelta

You have what it takes to secure better space in the python world. However, it is required that you put the ones you’ve learned into practice. For a helping hand see the Python Tutorials. Good luck Coding!