RE: How to work with datetime in Python?
I'm writing a Python script that needs to manage dates and times, but I'm not sure how to effectively use the Python datetime module. Could someone explain or provide some examples?
In Python, you can manage dates and times using the built-in `datetime` module.
First, you need to import it:
```python
import datetime
```
Here are some basic uses:
1. **Current date and time:** You can get the current date and time using `datetime.now()`.
```python
>>> print(datetime.datetime.now())
2019-07-19 13:19:12.991924
```
2. **Creating specific date:** You can create specific datetime by providing year, month, day as arguments to the `datetime()` function. You can provide further arguments for hours, minutes, seconds, and microseconds.
```python
>>> print(datetime.datetime(2020, 1, 1))
2020-01-01 00:00:00
```
3. **Accessing Date Attributes:** You can access the year, month, day, etc. from a datetime object using the attributes - year, month, day, hour, minute, second.
```python
>>> dt = datetime.datetime(2020, 1, 1)
>>> print(dt.year, dt.month, dt.day)
2020 1 1
```
4. **Timedelta:** Timedeltas represent duration, or the difference between two dates/times.
```python
>>> dt1 = datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 1)
>>> dt2 = datetime.datetime(2020, 1, 1)
>>> dt_delta = dt1-dt2
>>> print(dt_delta.days)
366
```
Remember, the `strftime()` method can be used to format a datetime object into a string of your desired format, and `strptime()` can be used to parse a string into a datetime object.
You can read the [official Python documentation](https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html) for more in-depth information!