8.1. datetime — Basic date and time types

New in version 2.3.

The datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times in both simple and complex ways. While date and time arithmetic is supported, the focus of the implementation is on efficient attribute extraction for output formatting and manipulation. For related functionality, see also the time and calendar modules.

There are two kinds of date and time objects: “naive” and “aware”.

An aware object has sufficient knowledge of applicable algorithmic and political time adjustments, such as time zone and daylight saving time information, to locate itself relative to other aware objects. An aware object is used to represent a specific moment in time that is not open to interpretation 1.

A naive object does not contain enough information to unambiguously locate itself relative to other date/time objects. Whether a naive object represents Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), local time, or time in some other timezone is purely up to the program, just like it’s up to the program whether a particular number represents metres, miles, or mass. Naive objects are easy to understand and to work with, at the cost of ignoring some aspects of reality.

For applications requiring aware objects, datetime and time objects have an optional time zone information attribute, tzinfo, that can be set to an instance of a subclass of the abstract tzinfo class. These tzinfo objects capture information about the offset from UTC time, the time zone name, and whether Daylight Saving Time is in effect. Note that no concrete tzinfo classes are supplied by the datetime module. Supporting timezones at whatever level of detail is required is up to the application. The rules for time adjustment across the world are more political than rational, and there is no standard suitable for every application.

The datetime module exports the following constants:

datetime.MINYEAR

The smallest year number allowed in a date or datetime object. MINYEAR is 1.

datetime.MAXYEAR

The largest year number allowed in a date or datetime object. MAXYEAR is 9999.

See also

Module calendar

General calendar related functions.

Module time

Time access and conversions.

8.1.1. Available Types

class datetime.date

An idealized naive date, assuming the current Gregorian calendar always was, and always will be, in effect. Attributes: year, month, and day.

class datetime.time

An idealized time, independent of any particular day, assuming that every day has exactly 24*60*60 seconds (there is no notion of “leap seconds” here). Attributes: hour, minute, second, microsecond, and tzinfo.

class datetime.datetime

A combination of a date and a time. Attributes: year, month, day, hour, minute, second, microsecond, and tzinfo.

class datetime.timedelta

A duration expressing the difference between two date, time, or datetime instances to microsecond resolution.

class datetime.tzinfo

An abstract base class for time zone information objects. These are used by the datetime and time classes to provide a customizable notion of time adjustment (for example, to account for time zone and/or daylight saving time).

Objects of these types are immutable.

Objects of the date type are always naive.

An object of type time or datetime may be naive or aware. A datetime object d is aware if d.tzinfo is not None and d.tzinfo.utcoffset(d) does not return None. If d.tzinfo is None, or if d.tzinfo is not None but d.tzinfo.utcoffset(d) returns None, d is naive. A time object t is aware if t.tzinfo is not None and t.tzinfo.utcoffset(None) does not return None. Otherwise, t is naive.

The distinction between naive and aware doesn’t apply to timedelta objects.

Subclass relationships:

object
    timedelta
    tzinfo
    time
    date
        datetime

8.1.2. timedelta Objects

A timedelta object represents a duration, the difference between two dates or times.

class datetime.timedelta([days[, seconds[, microseconds[, milliseconds[, minutes[, hours[, weeks]]]]]]])

All arguments are optional and default to 0. Arguments may be ints, longs, or floats, and may be positive or negative.

Only days, seconds and microseconds are stored internally. Arguments are converted to those units:

  • A millisecond is converted to 1000 microseconds.

  • A minute is converted to 60 seconds.

  • An hour is converted to 3600 seconds.

  • A week is converted to 7 days.

and days, seconds and microseconds are then normalized so that the representation is unique, with

  • 0 <= microseconds < 1000000

  • 0 <= seconds < 3600*24 (the number of seconds in one day)

  • -999999999 <= days <= 999999999

If any argument is a float and there are fractional microseconds, the fractional microseconds left over from all arguments are combined and their sum is rounded to the nearest microsecond. If no argument is a float, the conversion and normalization processes are exact (no information is lost).

If the normalized value of days lies outside the indicated range, OverflowError is raised.

Note that normalization of negative values may be surprising at first. For example,

>>> from datetime import timedelta
>>> d = timedelta(microseconds=-1)
>>> (d.days, d.seconds, d.microseconds)
(-1, 86399, 999999)

Class attributes are:

timedelta.min

The most negative timedelta object, timedelta(-999999999).

timedelta.max

The most positive timedelta object, timedelta(days=999999999, hours=23, minutes=59, seconds=59, microseconds=999999).

timedelta.resolution

The smallest possible difference between non-equal timedelta objects, timedelta(microseconds=1).

Note that, because of normalization, timedelta.max > -timedelta.min. -timedelta.max is not representable as a timedelta object.

Instance attributes (read-only):

Attribute

Value

days

Between -999999999 and 999999999 inclusive

seconds

Between 0 and 86399 inclusive

microseconds

Between 0 and 999999 inclusive

Supported operations:

Operation

Result

t1 = t2 + t3

Sum of t2 and t3. Afterwards t1-t2 == t3 and t1-t3 == t2 are true. (1)

t1 = t2 - t3

Difference of t2 and t3. Afterwards t1 == t2 - t3 and t2 == t1 + t3 are true. (1)

t1 = t2 * i or t1 = i * t2

Delta multiplied by an integer or long. Afterwards t1 // i == t2 is true, provided i != 0.

In general, t1 * i == t1 * (i-1) + t1 is true. (1)

t1 = t2 // i

The floor is computed and the remainder (if any) is thrown away. (3)

+t1

Returns a timedelta object with the same value. (2)

-t1

equivalent to timedelta(-t1.days, -t1.seconds, -t1.microseconds), and to t1* -1. (1)(4)

abs(t)

equivalent to +t when t.days >= 0, and to -t when t.days < 0. (2)

str(t)

Returns a string in the form [D day[s], ][H]H:MM:SS[.UUUUUU], where D is negative for negative t. (5)

repr(t)

Returns a string in the form datetime.timedelta(D[, S[, U]]), where D is negative for negative t. (5)

Notes:

  1. This is exact, but may overflow.

  2. This is exact, and cannot overflow.

  3. Division by 0 raises ZeroDivisionError.

  4. -timedelta.max is not representable as a timedelta object.

  5. String representations of timedelta objects are normalized similarly to their internal representation. This leads to somewhat unusual results for negative timedeltas. For example:

    >>> timedelta(hours=-5)
datetime.timedelta(-1, 68400)
>>> print(_)
-1 day, 19:00:00

In addition to the operations listed above timedelta objects support certain additions and subtractions with date and datetime objects (see below).

Comparisons of timedelta objects are supported with the timedelta object representing the smaller duration considered to be the smaller timedelta. In order to stop mixed-type comparisons from falling back to the default comparison by object address, when a timedelta object is compared to an object of a different type, TypeError is raised unless the comparison is == or !=. The latter cases return False or True, respectively.

timedelta objects are hashable (usable as dictionary keys), support efficient pickling, and in Boolean contexts, a timedelta object is considered to be true if and only if it isn’t equal to timedelta(0).

Instance methods:

timedelta.total_seconds()

Return the total number of seconds contained in the duration. Equivalent to (td.microseconds + (td.seconds + td.days * 24 * 3600) * 10**6) / 10**6 computed with true division enabled.

Note that for very large time intervals (greater than 270 years on most platforms) this method will lose microsecond accuracy.

New in version 2.7.

Example usage:

>>> from datetime import timedelta
>>> year = timedelta(days=365)
>>> another_year = timedelta(weeks=40, days=84, hours=23,
...                          minutes=50, seconds=600)  # adds up to 365 days
>>> year.total_seconds()
31536000.0
>>> year == another_year
True
>>> ten_years = 10 * year
>>> ten_years, ten_years.days // 365
(datetime.timedelta(3650), 10)
>>> nine_years = ten_years - year
>>> nine_years, nine_years.days // 365
(datetime.timedelta(3285), 9)
>>> three_years = nine_years // 3;
>>> three_years, three_years.days // 365
(datetime.timedelta(1095), 3)
>>> abs(three_years - ten_years) == 2 * three_years + year
True

8.1.3. date Objects

A date object represents a date (year, month and day) in an idealized calendar, the current Gregorian calendar indefinitely extended in both directions. January 1 of year 1 is called day number 1, January 2 of year 1 is called day number 2, and so on. This matches the definition of the “proleptic Gregorian” calendar in Dershowitz and Reingold’s book Calendrical Calculations, where it’s the base calendar for all computations. See the book for algorithms for converting between proleptic Gregorian ordinals and many other calendar systems.

class datetime.date(year, month, day)

All arguments are required. Arguments may be ints or longs, in the following ranges:

  • MINYEAR <= year <= MAXYEAR

  • 1 <= month <= 12

  • 1 <= day <= number of days in the given month and year

If an argument outside those ranges is given, ValueError is raised.

Other constructors, all class methods:

classmethod date.today()

Return the current local date. This is equivalent to date.fromtimestamp(time.time()).

classmethod date.fromtimestamp(timestamp)

Return the local date corresponding to the POSIX timestamp, such as is returned by time.time(). This may raise ValueError, if the timestamp is out of the range of values supported by the platform C localtime() function. It’s common for this to be restricted to years from 1970 through 2038. Note that on non-POSIX systems that include leap seconds in their notion of a timestamp, leap seconds are ignored by fromtimestamp().

classmethod date.fromordinal(ordinal)

Return the date corresponding to the proleptic Gregorian ordinal, where January 1 of year 1 has ordinal 1. ValueError is raised unless 1 <= ordinal <= date.max.toordinal(). For any date d, date.fromordinal(d.toordinal()) == d.

Class attributes:

date.min

The earliest representable date, date(MINYEAR, 1, 1).

date.max

The latest representable date, date(MAXYEAR, 12, 31).

date.resolution

The smallest possible difference between non-equal date objects, timedelta(days=1).

Instance attributes (read-only):

date.year

Between MINYEAR and MAXYEAR inclusive.

date.month

Between 1 and 12 inclusive.

date.day

Between 1 and the number of days in the given month of the given year.

Supported operations:

Operation

Result

date2 = date1 + timedelta

date2 is timedelta.days days removed from date1. (1)

date2 = date1 - timedelta

Computes date2 such that date2 + timedelta == date1. (2)

timedelta = date1 - date2

(3)

date1 < date2

date1 is considered less than date2 when date1 precedes date2 in time. (4)

Notes:

  1. date2 is moved forward in time if timedelta.days > 0, or backward if timedelta.days < 0. Afterward date2 - date1 == timedelta.days. timedelta.seconds and timedelta.microseconds are ignored. OverflowError is raised if date2.year would be smaller than MINYEAR or larger than MAXYEAR.

  2. This isn’t quite equivalent to date1 + (-timedelta), because -timedelta in isolation can overflow in cases where date1 - timedelta does not. timedelta.seconds and timedelta.microseconds are ignored.

  3. This is exact, and cannot overflow. timedelta.seconds and timedelta.microseconds are 0, and date2 + timedelta == date1 after.

  4. In other words, date1 < date2 if and only if date1.toordinal() < date2.toordinal(). In order to stop comparison from falling back to the default scheme of comparing object addresses, date comparison normally raises TypeError if the other comparand isn’t also a date object. However, NotImplemented is returned instead if the other comparand has a timetuple() attribute. This hook gives other kinds of date objects a chance at implementing mixed-type comparison. If not, when a date object is compared to an object of a different type, TypeError is raised unless the comparison is == or !=. The latter cases return False or True, respectively.

Dates can be used as dictionary keys. In Boolean contexts, all date objects are considered to be true.

Instance methods:

date.replace(year, month, day)

Return a date with the same value, except for those parameters given new values by whichever keyword arguments are specified. For example, if d == date(2002, 12, 31), then d.replace(day=26) == date(2002, 12, 26).

date.timetuple()

Return a time.struct_time such as returned by time.localtime(). The hours, minutes and seconds are 0, and the DST flag is -1. d.timetuple() is equivalent to time.struct_time((d.year, d.month, d.day, 0, 0, 0, d.weekday(), yday, -1)), where yday = d.toordinal() - date(d.year, 1, 1).toordinal() + 1 is the day number within the current year starting with 1 for January 1st.

date.toordinal()

Return the proleptic Gregorian ordinal of the date, where January 1 of year 1 has ordinal 1. For any date object d, date.fromordinal(d.toordinal()) == d.

date.weekday()

Return the day of the week as an integer, where Monday is 0 and Sunday is 6. For example, date(2002, 12, 4).weekday() == 2, a Wednesday. See also isoweekday().

date.isoweekday()

Return the day of the week as an integer, where Monday is 1 and Sunday is 7. For example, date(2002, 12, 4).isoweekday() == 3, a Wednesday. See also weekday(), isocalendar().

date.isocalendar()

Return a 3-tuple, (ISO year, ISO week number, ISO weekday).

The ISO calendar is a widely used variant of the Gregorian calendar. See https://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/calendar/isocalendar.htm for a good explanation.

The ISO year consists of 52 or 53 full weeks, and where a week starts on a Monday and ends on a Sunday. The first week of an ISO year is the first (Gregorian) calendar week of a year containing a Thursday. This is called week number 1, and the ISO year of that Thursday is the same as its Gregorian year.

For example, 2004 begins on a Thursday, so the first week of ISO year 2004 begins on Monday, 29 Dec 2003 and ends on Sunday, 4 Jan 2004, so that date(2003, 12, 29).isocalendar() == (2004, 1, 1) and date(2004, 1, 4).isocalendar() == (2004, 1, 7).

date.isoformat()

Return a string representing the date in ISO 8601 format, ‘YYYY-MM-DD’. For example, date(2002, 12, 4).isoformat() == '2002-12-04'.

date.__str__()

For a date d, str(d) is equivalent to d.isoformat().

date.ctime()

Return a string representing the date, for example date(2002, 12, 4).ctime() == 'Wed Dec 4 00:00:00 2002'. d.ctime() is equivalent to time.ctime(time.mktime(d.timetuple())) on platforms where the native C ctime() function (which time.ctime() invokes, but which date.ctime() does not invoke) conforms to the C standard.

date.strftime(format)

Return a string representing the date, controlled by an explicit format string. Format codes referring to hours, minutes or seconds will see 0 values. For a complete list of formatting directives, see section strftime() and strptime() Behavior.

date.__format__(format)

Same as date.strftime(). This makes it possible to specify a format string for a date object when using str.format(). See section strftime() and strptime() Behavior.

Example of counting days to an event:

>>> import time
>>> from datetime import date
>>> today = date.today()
>>> today
datetime.date(2007, 12, 5)
>>> today == date.fromtimestamp(time.time())
True
>>> my_birthday = date(today.year, 6, 24)
>>> if my_birthday < today:
...     my_birthday = my_birthday.replace(year=today.year + 1)
>>> my_birthday
datetime.date(2008, 6, 24)
>>> time_to_birthday = abs(my_birthday - today)
>>> time_to_birthday.days
202

Example of working with date:

>>> from datetime import date
>>> d = date.fromordinal(730920) # 730920th day after 1. 1. 0001
>>> d
datetime.date(2002, 3, 11)
>>> t = d.timetuple()
>>> for i in t:     
...     print i
2002                # year
3                   # month
11                  # day
0
0
0
0                   # weekday (0 = Monday)
70                  # 70th day in the year
-1
>>> ic = d.isocalendar()
>>> for i in ic:    
...     print i
2002                # ISO year
11                  # ISO week number
1                   # ISO day number ( 1 = Monday )
>>> d.isoformat()
'2002-03-11'
>>> d.strftime("%d/%m/%y")
'11/03/02'
>>> d.strftime("%A %d. %B %Y")
'Monday 11. March 2002'
>>> 'The {1} is {0:%d}, the {2} is {0:%B}.'.format(d, "day", "month")
'The day is 11, the month is March.'

8.1.4. datetime Objects

A datetime object is a single object containing all the information from a date object and a time object. Like a date object, datetime assumes the current Gregorian calendar extended in both directions; like a time object, datetime assumes there are exactly 3600*24 seconds in every day.

Constructor:

class datetime.datetime(year, month, day[, hour[, minute[, second[, microsecond[, tzinfo]]]]])

The year, month and day arguments are required. tzinfo may be None, or an instance of a tzinfo subclass. The remaining arguments may be ints or longs, in the following ranges:

  • MINYEAR <= year <= MAXYEAR

  • 1 <= month <= 12

  • 1 <= day <= number of days in the given month and year

  • 0 <= hour < 24

  • 0 <= minute < 60

  • 0 <= second < 60

  • 0 <= microsecond < 1000000

If an argument outside those ranges is given, ValueError is raised.

Other constructors, all class methods:

classmethod datetime.today()

Return the current local datetime, with tzinfo None. This is equivalent to datetime.fromtimestamp(time.time()). See also now(), fromtimestamp().

classmethod datetime.now([tz])

Return the current local date and time. If optional argument tz is None or not specified, this is like today(), but, if possible, supplies more precision than can be gotten from going through a time.time() timestamp (for example, this may be possible on platforms supplying the C gettimeofday() function).

If tz is not None, it must be an instance of a tzinfo subclass, and the current date and time are converted to tz’s time zone. In this case the result is equivalent to tz.fromutc(datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=tz)). See also today(), utcnow().

classmethod datetime.utcnow()

Return the current UTC date and time, with tzinfo None. This is like now(), but returns the current UTC date and time, as a naive datetime object. See also now().

classmethod datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp[, tz])

Return the local date and time corresponding to the POSIX timestamp, such as is returned by time.time(). If optional argument tz is None or not specified, the timestamp is converted to the platform’s local date and time, and the returned datetime object is naive.

If tz is not None, it must be an instance of a tzinfo subclass, and the timestamp is converted to tz’s time zone. In this case the result is equivalent to tz.fromutc(datetime.utcfromtimestamp(timestamp).replace(tzinfo=tz)).

fromtimestamp() may raise ValueError, if the timestamp is out of the range of values supported by the platform C localtime() or gmtime() functions. It’s common for this to be restricted to years in 1970 through 2038. Note that on non-POSIX systems that include leap seconds in their notion of a timestamp, leap seconds are ignored by fromtimestamp(), and then it’s possible to have two timestamps differing by a second that yield identical datetime objects. See also utcfromtimestamp().

classmethod datetime.utcfromtimestamp(timestamp)

Return the UTC datetime corresponding to the POSIX timestamp, with tzinfo None. This may raise ValueError, if the timestamp is out of the range of values supported by the platform C gmtime() function. It’s common for this to be restricted to years in 1970 through 2038. See also fromtimestamp().

classmethod datetime.fromordinal(ordinal)

Return the datetime corresponding to the proleptic Gregorian ordinal, where January 1 of year 1 has ordinal 1. ValueError is raised unless 1 <= ordinal <= datetime.max.toordinal(). The hour, minute, second and microsecond of the result are all 0, and tzinfo is None.

classmethod datetime.combine(date, time)

Return a new datetime object whose date components are equal to the given date object’s, and whose time components and tzinfo attributes are equal to the given time object’s. For any datetime object d, d == datetime.combine(d.date(), d.timetz()). If date is a datetime object, its time components and tzinfo attributes are ignored.

classmethod datetime.strptime(date_string, format