Date & Time

Work with dates, times, and timedeltas using Python's datetime module

Working with Dates

datetime module provides date and time classes
date class represents calendar dates
datetime class combines date and time
Can create, format, and manipulate dates

from datetime import date, datetime

# Current date
today = date.today()
print(f"Today: {today}")

# Create specific date
birthday = date(1990, 5, 15)
print(f"Birthday: {birthday}")

# Date components
print(f"Year: {today.year}")
print(f"Month: {today.month}")
print(f"Day: {today.day}")

# Current datetime
now = datetime.now()
print(f"Now: {now}")

Working with Time

time class represents time of day
datetime includes both date and time
Can extract hours, minutes, seconds
Supports microseconds for precision

from datetime import time, datetime

# Create time
lunch_time = time(12, 30, 0)
print(f"Lunch: {lunch_time}")

# Current time from datetime
now = datetime.now()
print(f"Hour: {now.hour}")
print(f"Minute: {now.minute}")
print(f"Second: {now.second}")

# Create datetime
meeting = datetime(2024, 12, 25, 14, 30)
print(f"Meeting: {meeting}")

Formatting Dates

strftime() formats datetime as string
strptime() parses string to datetime
Format codes: %Y (year), %m (month), %d (day)
Time codes: %H (hour), %M (minute), %S (second)

from datetime import datetime

now = datetime.now()

# Format datetime as string
formatted = now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
print(f"Formatted: {formatted}")

# Different formats
print(now.strftime("%B %d, %Y"))
print(now.strftime("%m/%d/%y"))
print(now.strftime("%A, %I:%M %p"))

# Parse string to datetime
date_str = "2024-12-25"
parsed = datetime.strptime(date_str, "%Y-%m-%d")
print(f"Parsed: {parsed}")

Date Arithmetic

timedelta represents duration between dates
Can add/subtract timedeltas from dates
Calculate difference between two dates
Useful for scheduling and deadlines

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

now = datetime.now()

# Add days
tomorrow = now + timedelta(days=1)
next_week = now + timedelta(weeks=1)
print(f"Tomorrow: {tomorrow.date()}")
print(f"Next week: {next_week.date()}")

# Subtract days
yesterday = now - timedelta(days=1)
print(f"Yesterday: {yesterday.date()}")

# Calculate difference
birthday = datetime(2024, 12, 25)
diff = birthday - now
print(f"Days until birthday: {diff.days}")

# Time operations
future = now + timedelta(hours=2, minutes=30)
print(f"In 2.5 hours: {future.strftime('%H:%M')}")