Time and Datetime Module in Python

September 21st, 2019

Time and Datetime Module in Python

Python has an inbuilt module to deal with date and time. Date and time are very essential in any project to record the real-time data.

Time Module:

Python time module is helpful when we need the current system time into our code. we may need to synchronize the system time with our project. localtime() is the function to get the system time.

# import the time module
import time
seconds = time.time()
Now = time.localtime(seconds)
# print the currentTime variable to know about it
print(Now,’\n’)
print(‘The Current System time is :’, time.asctime(Now))
We can format the time using strftime() to format the time.
print(‘Time is :’, time.strftime(“%d/%m/%Y”, Now))

Calendar Module:

Python has an inbuilt module to check the current date and month using the Calendar module.

# import Calendar
import calendar
#current month
print(‘The month August is:\n’, calendar.month(2020, 8))
# we can set the first day of the week as sunday
calendar.setfirstweekday(6)
# print the calender
print(‘The month August is:\n’, calendar.month(2020, 8))
# Checking year is leap year
print(‘2020 a leap year? Ans:’, calendar.isleap(2020))
print(‘1998 a leap year? Ans:’, calendar.isleap(1998))

datetime Module:

Let us know about datetime module in python. Using datetime it is easy to print the current date and time.

import time
import datetime
print(“unix epoch started: %s”, time.time())
print(“Present date and time: ” , datetime.datetime.now())
We can do lot of thing using datetime module. We can print the current date, time, year, month etc..
import datetime
print(“Current year: “, datetime.date.today().strftime(“%Y”))
print(“Current Month of year: “, datetime.date.today().strftime(“%B”))
print(“Week number of the year: “, datetime.date.today().strftime(“%W”))
print(“Weekday of the week: “, datetime.date.today().strftime(“%w”))
print(“Day of year: “, datetime.date.today().strftime(“%j”))
print(“Day of the month : “, datetime.date.today().strftime(“%d”))
print(“Day of week: “, datetime.date.today().strftime(“%A”))

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import datetime
#Getting week day for a date
My_birthday = datetime.date(1989,10, 1) #year, month, day
print(My_birthday.strftime(“%A”))

Getting current date:

import datetime
today = datetime.date.today()
print(today)

Get date from a timestamp:

We can get the date from timestamp also. The time stamp is usually the number of seconds between the particular date and January 1,1970 at UTC. We can convert the time stamp using the function fromtimestamp().

from datetime import date
timestamp_now = date.fromtimestamp(1326244364)
print(“Date =”, timestamp_now)

Get today’s year, month and day:

We can print year, month and day using datetime module

from datetime import date
today = date.today()
print(“Present year:”, today.year)
print(“Present month:”, today.month)
print(“Present day:”, today.day)

datetime.datetime:

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

from datetime import datetime
#datetime(year, month, day)
a = datetime(2020, 10, 18)
print(a)
# datetime(year, month, day, hour, minute, second, microsecond)
b = datetime(2020, 11, 28, 23, 55, 59, 342380)
print(b)

datetime.timedelta:

timedelta function is very useful while we want to calculate the future datetime and past datetime.

from datetime importdatetime,timedelta
Today=datetime.now()
# what is the date after 45 days from today
future=Today+timedelta(45)
print(future)
# what is the date before 67 days from today
past=Today-timedelta(67)
print(past)

Difference between two timedeltas:

from datetime import timedelta
time1 = timedelta(weeks = 2, days = 5, hours = 1, seconds = 33)
time2 = timedelta(days = 4, hours = 11, minutes = 4, seconds = 54)
time3 = time1 – time2
print(“t3 =”, time3)

Dealing with TimeZones:

In Realtime we have to work on different clients situated in different time zones. we can handle all time zones in python using pytz module. Pytz is third party library. We have to install it using pip install pytz.

from datetime import datetime
importpytz
#local time
local = datetime.now()
print(“Local:”, local.strftime(“%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S”))
#newyork time zone
tz_NY = pytz.timezone(‘America/New_York’)
datetime_NY = datetime.now(tz_NY)
print(“NY:”, datetime_NY.strftime(“%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S”))
#Europe time zone
tz_London = pytz.timezone(‘Europe/London’)
datetime_London = datetime.now(tz_London)
print(“London:”, datetime_London.strftime(“%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S”))

Print all time zones:

To get all time zones. The list is quite big. We will be using some 4 or 5 time zones in our real-time projects.The below program will display all time zones.

importpytz
#Displays all time zones
print(‘all_timezones =’, pytz.all_timezones, ‘\n’)

Python pytz example:

importpytz
from datetime import datetime
# getting utctimezone
utc = pytz.utc
# getting timezone by name
ist = pytz.timezone(‘Asia/Kolkata’)
# getting datetime of specified timezone
print(‘UTC Time =’, datetime.now(tz=utc))
print(‘IST Time =’, datetime.now(tz=ist))

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Time and Datetime Module in Python