Date manipulation in Python
Manipulate Date and Time in Python
Date manipulation in Python is a crucial skill, and the datetime module provides a comprehensive set of tools to work with date
and time. Here's a detailed guide to date manipulation:
Date Arithmetic
You can perform arithmetic operations (addition or subtraction) on dates and times using timedelta.
- Adding/Subtracting Days to/from a Date
# Adding days to current date
future_date = today + datetime.timedelta(days=10)
print(future_date) # Output: 2025-02-19
# Subtracting days from current date
past_date = today - datetime.timedelta(days=5)
print(past_date) # Output: 2025-02-04
- Adding/Subtracting Hours, Minutes, or Seconds ⏰
# Adding hours to current time
new_time = now + datetime.timedelta(hours=5)
print(new_time) # Output: 2025-02-09 19:30:45
# Subtracting minutes from current time
new_time_sub = now - datetime.timedelta(minutes=30)
print(new_time_sub) # Output: 2025-02-09 14:00:45
- Time Difference Between Two Dates ⏳
You can subtract two datetime objects to get a timedelta object, which represents the difference.
# Date difference between two datetime objects
start = datetime.datetime(2025, 2, 1)
end = datetime.datetime(2025, 2, 9)
difference = end - start
print(difference) # Output: 8 days, 0:00:00
# Get number of days
print(difference.days) # Output: 8
Formatting Dates
You can convert datetime objects into readable strings using strftime().
# Format current datetime
formatted_date = now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
print(formatted_date) # Output: 2025-02-09 14:30:45
# Custom format for weekday and month
formatted_custom = now.strftime("%A, %B %d, %Y")
print(formatted_custom) # Output: Sunday, February 09, 2025
The format codes include:
%Y: Year with century (e.g., 2025)%m: Month as a two-digit number (e.g., 02)%d: Day of the month as a two-digit number (e.g., 09)%H: Hour (00-23)%M: Minute (00-59)%S: Second (00-59)%A: Full weekday name (e.g., Monday)%B: Full month name (e.g., February)
Parsing Date Strings
You can convert a string into a datetime object using strptime().
# Convert string to datetime
date_str = "2025-02-09 14:30:45"
parsed_date = datetime.datetime.strptime(date_str, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
print(parsed_date) # Output: 2025-02-09 14:30:45
Handling Weekdays and Weekends
You can get the day of the week and perform checks.
# Get weekday (0: Monday, 6: Sunday)
weekday = now.weekday()
print(weekday) # Output: 6 (Sunday)
# Check if today is weekend
if now.weekday() >= 5: # 5 and 6 correspond to Saturday and Sunday
print("It's the weekend!")
Comparing Dates
You can compare dates to check if one is earlier, later, or equal to another.
# Comparison of dates
date1 = datetime.date(2025, 2, 9)
date2 = datetime.date(2025, 2, 10)
# Check if date1 is earlier than date2
if date1 < date2:
print(f"{date1} is earlier than {date2}")
# Check if dates are equal
if date1 == date2:
print("Both dates are the same")
else:
print(f"{date1} is not equal to {date2}")
Date Ranges
You can create a range of dates using timedelta and loop through it.
# Create a date range using timedelta
start_date = datetime.date(2025, 2, 1)
end_date = datetime.date(2025, 2, 9)
delta = datetime.timedelta(days=1)
current_date = start_date
while current_date <= end_date:
print(current_date)
current_date += delta
Adding Business Days
You can use numpy or pandas for adding business days to a date.
pip install numpy
import numpy as np
# Add business days to a date
start_date = np.datetime64('2025-02-09')
new_date = np.busday_add(start_date, 5) # Adds 5 business days
print(new_date) # Output: 2025-02-14
Converting Between Different Time Formats
- Converting Between Strings and Date Objects:
date_str = "2025-02-09"
date_obj = datetime.datetime.strptime(date_str, "%Y-%m-%d").date()
print(date_obj) # Output: 2025-02-09