{"id":6153,"date":"2022-06-03T17:16:42","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T15:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miro.borodziuk.eu\/?p=6153"},"modified":"2026-01-15T10:09:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:09:30","slug":"the-datetime-and-time-modules-in-python","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miro.borodziuk.eu\/index.php\/2022\/06\/03\/the-datetime-and-time-modules-in-python\/","title":{"rendered":"The datetime and time modules in Python"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0 datetime <\/i>module provides classes for working with date and time<\/b>.\u00a0Date and time have countless uses and it’s probably hard to find a production application that doesn’t use them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. To create a date()<\/strong><\/code> object, you must pass the year, month, and day arguments as follows:<\/p>\n

from datetime import date\r\n\r\nmy_date = date(2020, 9, 29)\r\nprint(\"Year:\", my_date.year) # Year: 2020\r\nprint(\"Month:\", my_date.month) # Month: 9\r\nprint(\"Day:\", my_date.day) # Day: 29\r\n<\/pre>\n
The date<\/code> object has three (read-only) attributes: year, month, and day.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
2. The today()<\/strong><\/code> method returns a date object representing the current local date:<\/p>\n
from datetime import date\r\nprint(\"Today:\", date.today()) # Displays: Today: 2020-09-29<\/pre>\n
or<\/p>\n
from datetime import date\r\n\r\ntoday = date.today()\r\n\r\nprint(\"Today:\", today)\r\nprint(\"Year:\", today.year)\r\nprint(\"Month:\", today.month)\r\nprint(\"Day:\", today.day)<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
3. In Unix, the timestamp expresses the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 (UTC). This date is called the “Unix epoch”<\/em>, because it began the counting of time on Unix systems. The timestamp is actually the difference between a particular date (including time) and January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 (UTC), expressed in seconds. To create a date object from a timestamp, we must pass a Unix timestamp to the fromtimestamp<\/code> <\/strong>method:<\/p>\n
from datetime import date\r\nfrom datetime import time\r\n\r\ntimestamp = time.time()\r\nprint(\"Timestamp:\", timestamp)\r\n\r\nd = date.fromtimestamp(timestamp)\r\nprint(\"Date:\", d)<\/pre>\n
Timestamp: 1767643499.6537435<\/code>
\nDate: 2026-01-05<\/code><\/p>\n
Note: The time()<\/strong><\/code> function returns the number of seconds from January 1, 1970 to the current moment in the form of a float number.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
4. The constructor of the time<\/code> <\/strong>class accepts six arguments (hour<\/i>, minute<\/i>, second<\/i>, microsecond<\/i>, tzinfo<\/i>, and fold<\/i>). Each of these arguments is optional.<\/p>\n
from datetime import time\r\n\r\nt = time(14, 53, 20, 1)\r\n\r\nprint(\"Time:\", t)\r\nprint(\"Hour:\", t.hour)\r\nprint(\"Minute:\", t.minute)\r\nprint(\"Second:\", t.second)\r\nprint(\"Microsecond:\", t.microsecond)<\/pre>\n
Time: 14:53:20.000001<\/code>
\nHour: 14<\/code>
\nMinute: 53<\/code>
\nSecond: 20<\/code>
\nMicrosecond: 1<\/code><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
5. The time<\/code> <\/strong>module contains the sleep()<\/code> <\/strong>function, which suspends program execution for a given number of seconds, e.g.:<\/p>\n
import time\r\n\r\ntime.sleep(10)\r\nprint(\"Hello world!\") # This text will be displayed after 10 seconds.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
6. In the datetime<\/code> <\/strong>module, date and time can be represented either as separate objects, or as one object. The class that combines date and time is called datetime<\/i>. All arguments passed to the constructor go to read-only class attributes. They are year<\/i>, month<\/i>, day<\/i>, hour<\/i>, minute<\/i>, second<\/i>, microsecond<\/i>, tzinfo<\/i>, and fold<\/i>:<\/p>\n
from datetime import datetime\r\n\r\ndt = datetime(2020, 9, 29, 13, 51)\r\nprint(\"Datetime:\", dt) # Displays: Datetime: 2020-09-29 13:51:00<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
7. The strftime()<\/code> <\/strong>method takes only one argument in the form of a string specifying a format that can consist of directives. A directive is a string consisting of the character %<\/code> (percent) and a lower-case or upper-case letter. Below are some useful directives:<\/p>\n