8.1. `datetime` — Basic date and time types¶

New in version 2.3:

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 member 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”. This distinction refers to whether the object has any notion of time zone, daylight saving time, or other kind of algorithmic or political time adjustment. Whether a naive datetime 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 datetime objects are easy to understand and to work with, at the cost of ignoring some aspects of reality.

For applications requiring more, datetime and time objects have an optional time zone information member, tzinfo, that can contain 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.

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 d of type time or datetime may be naive or aware. 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.

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:

This is exact, but may overflow.
This is exact, and cannot overflow.
Division by 0 raises ZeroDivisionError.
-timedelta.max is not representable as a timedelta object.
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).

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 == 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 :cfunc:`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:

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.
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.
This is exact, and cannot overflow. timedelta.seconds and timedelta.microseconds are 0, and date2 + timedelta == date1 after.
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 members 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(), d.toordinal() - date(d.year, 1, 1).toordinal() + 1, -1))

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 http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/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 :cfunc:`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. 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'

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 :cfunc:`gettimeofday` function).

Else tz must be an instance of a class 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.

Else tz must be an instance of a class 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 :cfunc:`localtime` or :cfunc:`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 :cfunc:`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 members are equal to the given date object’s, and whose time and tzinfo members 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 and tzinfo members are ignored.

classmethod datetime.strptime(date_string, format)¶

Return a datetime corresponding to date_string, parsed according to format. This is equivalent to datetime(*(time.strptime(date_string, format)[0:6])). ValueError is raised if the date_string and format can’t be parsed by time.strptime() or if it returns a value which isn’t a time tuple. See section strftime() and strptime() Behavior.

New in version 2.5:

New in version 2.5.

Class attributes:

datetime.min¶: The earliest representable datetime, datetime(MINYEAR, 1, 1, tzinfo=None).

datetime.max¶: The latest representable datetime, datetime(MAXYEAR, 12, 31, 23, 59, 59, 999999, tzinfo=None).

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

Instance attributes (read-only):

datetime.year¶: Between MINYEAR and MAXYEAR inclusive.

datetime.month¶: Between 1 and 12 inclusive.

datetime.day¶: Between 1 and the number of days in the given month of the given year.

datetime.hour¶: In range(24).

datetime.minute¶: In range(60).

datetime.second¶: In range(60).

datetime.microsecond¶: In range(1000000).

datetime.tzinfo¶: The object passed as the tzinfo argument to the datetime constructor, or None if none was passed.

Supported operations:

Operation	Result
`datetime2 = datetime1 + timedelta`	(1)
`datetime2 = datetime1 - timedelta`	(2)
`timedelta = datetime1 - datetime2`	(3)
`datetime1 < datetime2`	Compares `datetime` to `datetime`. (4)

datetime2 is a duration of timedelta removed from datetime1, moving forward in time if timedelta.days > 0, or backward if timedelta.days < 0. The result has the same tzinfo member as the input datetime, and datetime2 - datetime1 == timedelta after. OverflowError is raised if datetime2.year would be smaller than MINYEAR or larger than MAXYEAR. Note that no time zone adjustments are done even if the input is an aware object.
Computes the datetime2 such that datetime2 + timedelta == datetime1. As for addition, the result has the same tzinfo member as the input datetime, and no time zone adjustments are done even if the input is aware. This isn’t quite equivalent to datetime1 + (-timedelta), because -timedelta in isolation can overflow in cases where datetime1 - timedelta does not.
Subtraction of a datetime from a datetime is defined only if both operands are naive, or if both are aware. If one is aware and the other is naive, TypeError is raised.

If both are naive, or both are aware and have the same tzinfo member, the tzinfo members are ignored, and the result is a timedelta object t such that datetime2 + t == datetime1. No time zone adjustments are done in this case.

If both are aware and have different tzinfo members, a-b acts as if a and b were first converted to naive UTC datetimes first. The result is (a.replace(tzinfo=None) - a.utcoffset()) - (b.replace(tzinfo=None) - b.utcoffset()) except that the implementation never overflows.
datetime1 is considered less than datetime2 when datetime1 precedes datetime2 in time.

If one comparand is naive and the other is aware, TypeError is raised. If both comparands are aware, and have the same tzinfo member, the common tzinfo member is ignored and the base datetimes are compared. If both comparands are aware and have different tzinfo members, the comparands are first adjusted by subtracting their UTC offsets (obtained from self.utcoffset()).

Note

In order to stop comparison from falling back to the default scheme of comparing object addresses, datetime comparison normally raises TypeError if the other comparand isn’t also a datetime 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 datetime 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.

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

Instance methods:

datetime.date()¶: Return date object with same year, month and day.

datetime.time()¶: Return time object with same hour, minute, second and microsecond. tzinfo is None. See also method timetz().

datetime.timetz()¶: Return time object with same hour, minute, second, microsecond, and tzinfo members. See also method time().

datetime.replace([year[, month[, day[, hour[, minute[, second[, microsecond[, tzinfo]]]]]]]])¶: Return a datetime with the same members, except for those members given new values by whichever keyword arguments are specified. Note that tzinfo=None can be specified to create a naive datetime from an aware datetime with no conversion of date and time members.

datetime.astimezone(tz)¶

Return a datetime object with new tzinfo member tz, adjusting the date and time members so the result is the same UTC time as self, but in tz‘s local time.

tz must be an instance of a tzinfo subclass, and its utcoffset() and dst() methods must not return None. self must be aware (self.tzinfo must not be None, and self.utcoffset() must not return None).

If self.tzinfo is tz, self.astimezone(tz) is equal to self: no adjustment of date or time members is performed. Else the result is local time in time zone tz, representing the same UTC time as self: after astz = dt.astimezone(tz), astz - astz.utcoffset() will usually have the same date and time members as dt - dt.utcoffset(). The discussion of class tzinfo explains the cases at Daylight Saving Time transition boundaries where this cannot be achieved (an issue only if tz models both standard and daylight time).

If you merely want to attach a time zone object tz to a datetime dt without adjustment of date and time members, use dt.replace(tzinfo=tz). If you merely want to remove the time zone object from an aware datetime dt without conversion of date and time members, use dt.replace(tzinfo=None).

Note that the default tzinfo.fromutc() method can be overridden in a tzinfo subclass to affect the result returned by astimezone(). Ignoring error cases, astimezone() acts like:

def astimezone(self, tz):
    if self.tzinfo is tz:
        return self
    # Convert self to UTC, and attach the new time zone object.
    utc = (self - self.utcoffset()).replace(tzinfo=tz)
    # Convert from UTC to tz's local time.
    return tz.fromutc(utc)

datetime.utcoffset()¶: If tzinfo is None, returns None, else returns self.tzinfo.utcoffset(self), and raises an exception if the latter doesn’t return None, or a timedelta object representing a whole number of minutes with magnitude less than one day.

datetime.dst()¶: If tzinfo is None, returns None, else returns self.tzinfo.dst(self), and raises an exception if the latter doesn’t return None, or a timedelta object representing a whole number of minutes with magnitude less than one day.

datetime.tzname()¶: If tzinfo is None, returns None, else returns self.tzinfo.tzname(self), raises an exception if the latter doesn’t return None or a string object,

datetime.timetuple()¶: Return a time.struct_time such as returned by time.localtime(). d.timetuple() is equivalent to time.struct_time((d.year, d.month, d.day, d.hour, d.minute, d.second, d.weekday(), d.toordinal() - date(d.year, 1, 1).toordinal() + 1, dst)) The tm_isdst flag of the result is set according to the dst() method: tzinfo is None or dst() returns None, tm_isdst is set to -1; else if dst() returns a non-zero value, tm_isdst is set to 1; else tm_isdst is set to 0.

datetime.utctimetuple()¶

If datetime instance d is naive, this is the same as d.timetuple() except that tm_isdst is forced to 0 regardless of what d.dst() returns. DST is never in effect for a UTC time.

If d is aware, d is normalized to UTC time, by subtracting d.utcoffset(), and a time.struct_time for the normalized time is returned. tm_isdst is forced to 0. Note that the result’s tm_year member may be MINYEAR-1 or MAXYEAR+1, if d.year was MINYEAR or MAXYEAR and UTC adjustment spills over a year boundary.

datetime.toordinal()¶: Return the proleptic Gregorian ordinal of the date. The same as self.date().toordinal().

datetime.weekday()¶: Return the day of the week as an integer, where Monday is 0 and Sunday is 6. The same as self.date().weekday(). See also isoweekday().

datetime.isoweekday()¶: Return the day of the week as an integer, where Monday is 1 and Sunday is 7. The same as self.date().isoweekday(). See also weekday(), isocalendar().

datetime.isocalendar()¶: Return a 3-tuple, (ISO year, ISO week number, ISO weekday). The same as self.date().isocalendar().

datetime.isoformat([sep])¶

Return a string representing the date and time in ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.mmmmmm or, if microsecond is 0, YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS

If utcoffset() does not return None, a 6-character string is appended, giving the UTC offset in (signed) hours and minutes: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.mmmmmm+HH:MM or, if microsecond is 0 YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+HH:MM

The optional argument sep (default 'T') is a one-character separator, placed between the date and time portions of the result. For example,

>>> from datetime import tzinfo, timedelta, datetime
>>> class TZ(tzinfo):
...     def utcoffset(self, dt): return timedelta(minutes=-399)
...
>>> datetime(2002, 12, 25, tzinfo=TZ()).isoformat(' ')
'2002-12-25 00:00:00-06:39'

datetime.__str__()¶: For a datetime instance d, str(d) is equivalent to d.isoformat(' ').

datetime.ctime()¶: Return a string representing the date and time, for example datetime(2002, 12, 4, 20, 30, 40).ctime() == 'Wed Dec 4 20:30:40 2002'. d.ctime() is equivalent to time.ctime(time.mktime(d.timetuple())) on platforms where the native C :cfunc:`ctime` function (which time.ctime() invokes, but which datetime.ctime() does not invoke) conforms to the C standard.

datetime.strftime(format)¶: Return a string representing the date and time, controlled by an explicit format string. See section strftime() and strptime() Behavior.

Examples of working with datetime objects:

>>> from datetime import datetime, date, time
>>> # Using datetime.combine()
>>> d = date(2005, 7, 14)
>>> t = time(12, 30)
>>> datetime.combine(d, t)
datetime.datetime(2005, 7, 14, 12, 30)
>>> # Using datetime.now() or datetime.utcnow()
>>> datetime.now()   
datetime.datetime(2007, 12, 6, 16, 29, 43, 79043)   # GMT +1
>>> datetime.utcnow()   
datetime.datetime(2007, 12, 6, 15, 29, 43, 79060)
>>> # Using datetime.strptime()
>>> dt = datetime.strptime("21/11/06 16:30", "%d/%m/%y %H:%M")
>>> dt
datetime.datetime(2006, 11, 21, 16, 30)
>>> # Using datetime.timetuple() to get tuple of all attributes
>>> tt = dt.timetuple()
>>> for it in tt:   
...     print it
...
2006    # year
11      # month
21      # day
16      # hour
30      # minute
0       # second
1       # weekday (0 = Monday)
325     # number of days since 1st January
-1      # dst - method tzinfo.dst() returned None
>>> # Date in ISO format
>>> ic = dt.isocalendar()
>>> for it in ic:   
...     print it
...
2006    # ISO year
47      # ISO week
2       # ISO weekday
>>> # Formatting datetime
>>> dt.strftime("%A, %d. %B %Y %I:%M%p")
'Tuesday, 21. November 2006 04:30PM'

Using datetime with tzinfo:

>>> from datetime import timedelta, datetime, tzinfo
>>> class GMT1(tzinfo):
...     def __init__(self):         # DST starts last Sunday in March
...         d = datetime(dt.year, 4, 1)   # ends last Sunday in October
...         self.dston = d - timedelta(days=d.weekday() + 1)
...         d = datetime(dt.year, 11, 1)
...         self.dstoff = d - timedelta(days=d.weekday() + 1)
...     def utcoffset(self, dt):
...         return timedelta(hours=1) + self.dst(dt)
...     def dst(self, dt):
...         if self.dston <=  dt.replace(tzinfo=None) < self.dstoff:
...             return timedelta(hours=1)
...         else:
...             return timedelta(0)
...     def tzname(self,dt):
...          return "GMT +1"
...
>>> class GMT2(tzinfo):
...     def __init__(self):
...         d = datetime(dt.year, 4, 1)
...         self.dston = d - timedelta(days=d.weekday() + 1)
...         d = datetime(dt.year, 11, 1)
...         self.dstoff = d - timedelta(days=d.weekday() + 1)
...     def utcoffset(self, dt):
...         return timedelta(hours=1) + self.dst(dt)
...     def dst(self, dt):
...         if self.dston <=  dt.replace(tzinfo=None) < self.dstoff:
...             return timedelta(hours=2)
...         else:
...             return timedelta(0)
...     def tzname(self,dt):
...         return "GMT +2"
...
>>> gmt1 = GMT1()
>>> # Daylight Saving Time
>>> dt1 = datetime(2006, 11, 21, 16, 30, tzinfo=gmt1)
>>> dt1.dst()
datetime.timedelta(0)
>>> dt1.utcoffset()
datetime.timedelta(0, 3600)
>>> dt2 = datetime(2006, 6, 14, 13, 0, tzinfo=gmt1)
>>> dt2.dst()
datetime.timedelta(0, 3600)
>>> dt2.utcoffset()
datetime.timedelta(0, 7200)
>>> # Convert datetime to another time zone
>>> dt3 = dt2.astimezone(GMT2())
>>> dt3     
datetime.datetime(2006, 6, 14, 14, 0, tzinfo=<GMT2 object at 0x...>)
>>> dt2     
datetime.datetime(2006, 6, 14, 13, 0, tzinfo=<GMT1 object at 0x...>)
>>> dt2.utctimetuple() == dt3.utctimetuple()
True

Directive	Meaning	Notes
`%a`	Locale’s abbreviated weekday name.
`%A`	Locale’s full weekday name.
`%b`	Locale’s abbreviated month name.
`%B`	Locale’s full month name.
`%c`	Locale’s appropriate date and time representation.
`%d`	Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31].
`%f`	Microsecond as a decimal number [0,999999], zero-padded on the left	(1)
`%H`	Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23].
`%I`	Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12].
`%j`	Day of the year as a decimal number [001,366].
`%m`	Month as a decimal number [01,12].
`%M`	Minute as a decimal number [00,59].
`%p`	Locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM.	(2)
`%S`	Second as a decimal number [00,61].	(3)
`%U`	Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. All days in a new year preceding the first Sunday are considered to be in week 0.	(4)
`%w`	Weekday as a decimal number [0(Sunday),6].
`%W`	Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a decimal number [00,53]. All days in a new year preceding the first Monday are considered to be in week 0.	(4)
`%x`	Locale’s appropriate date representation.
`%X`	Locale’s appropriate time representation.
`%y`	Year without century as a decimal number [00,99].
`%Y`	Year with century as a decimal number.
`%z`	UTC offset in the form +HHMM or -HHMM (empty string if the the object is naive).	(5)
`%Z`	Time zone name (empty string if the object is naive).
`%%`	A literal `'%'` character.

8.1. `datetime` — Basic date and time types¶

8.1.1. Available Types¶

8.1.2. `timedelta` Objects¶

8.1.3. `date` Objects¶

8.1.4. `datetime` Objects¶

8.1.5. `time` Objects¶

8.1.6. `tzinfo` Objects¶

8.1.7. `strftime()` and `strptime()` Behavior¶

Table Of Contents

Related Topics

This Page

8.1. datetime — Basic date and time types¶

8.1.1. Available Types¶

8.1.2. timedelta Objects¶

8.1.3. date Objects¶

8.1.4. datetime Objects¶

8.1.5. time Objects¶

8.1.6. tzinfo Objects¶

8.1.7. strftime() and strptime() Behavior¶

8.1. `datetime` — Basic date and time types¶

8.1.2. `timedelta` Objects¶

8.1.3. `date` Objects¶

8.1.4. `datetime` Objects¶

8.1.5. `time` Objects¶

8.1.6. `tzinfo` Objects¶

8.1.7. `strftime()` and `strptime()` Behavior¶