Time in Python

20 Jul 2019

Python’s datetime module provides the necessary tools to process information related to time. Specifically, the module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times. Given below are a few examples.

To find current local time

datetime.now() is a classmethod that returns current local time. We first have to import datetime module because datetime.now() is part of it.

We can get time information in another format by using the timetuple() method. timetuple() provides year, month, day, hour, second, weekday, yearday, and information on daylight saving.

import datetime   # module for manipulating times and dates

Now = datetime.datetime.now() # returns local current date and time

Now   # year, month, date, hour, minute, second, microsecond
print(Now) # Neatly formatted output
print(Now.year)
print(Now.second)
print(Now.microsecond)

Now.timetuple()
year, month, day,  hour, minute, second, weekday, yearday, dst = Now.timetuple()
# dst = 1 means daylight saving is on
# dst = 0 means daylight saving is not on
#dst = -1 means daylight saving info is not available 

datetime contains the following classes and classmethods

• timedelta
• date
  • fromtimestamp
  • today
  • fromordinal
  • fromisoformat
• tzinfo
• time
  • fromisoformat
• datetime
  • fromtimestamp
  • utcfromtimestamp
  • now
  • utcnow
  • combine
  • fromisoformat
  • strptime
• timezone