Working with Dates & Time

Python's datetime module provides powerful tools for working with dates and times.

The datetime Module

The datetime module is the standard way to work with dates in Python. It provides three main classes:

• date: Stores year, month, and day.
• time: Stores hour, minute, second, microsecond.
• datetime: Stores both date and time components.

Example

from datetime import datetime

now = datetime.now()
print(now)  # Output: 2024-03-15 14:30:00.123456

Date Arithmetic with timedelta

Often you need to calculate future or past dates (e.g., "7 days from now"). The timedelta class represents a duration or difference between two dates.

Example

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

today = datetime.now()
tomorrow = today + timedelta(days=1)

Formatting Dates: strftime

Definition: strftime (String Format Time) converts a datetime object into a readable string using format codes.

Code	Description	Example
%Y	Year (4 digits)	2024
%m	Month (01–12)	12
%d	Day (01–31)	25
%H	Hour (00–23)	14
%M	Minute (00–59)	30

Example

now = datetime.now()
print(now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")) # Output: 2024-12-25

Parsing Dates: strptime

Definition: strptime (String Parse Time) does the opposite of strftime. It converts a string into a datetime object.

You must provide the format string that matches the structure of your date string.

Example

date_string = "25/12/2024"
date_obj = datetime.strptime(date_string, "%d/%m/%Y")

Coding Challenge: Age Calculator

Quiz

Key Takeaways

✅ datetime.now() gets current date and time.
✅ timedelta for date arithmetic (add/subtract).
✅ strftime formats datetime as string.
✅ strptime parses string to datetime.

Keep coding! 🚀