Date Time

Sometimes it becomes very important to use date and/or time in our code. In this session, let's try to see how we can get current date time and convert it into different formats. For this we need to import datetime module.

import datetime

current_date_time = datetime.datetime.now()

print(current_date_time)


2020-06-21 14:52:14.623809

Let's now try to get today's date or say only current day/month/year.

import datetime

today = datetime.date.today()

print("Today's Date:", today)
print("Today's day:", today.day)
print("Today's month:", today.month)
print("Today's year:", today.year)

Today's Date: 2020-06-21
Today's day: 21
Today's month: 6
Today's year: 2020

Now, let's try to convert it into different format.

import datetime

today = datetime.date.today()

print("Date in dd/mm/yyyy: ", today.strftime("%d/%m/%Y"))
print("Date in mmm dd, yyyy: ", today.strftime("%b %d, %Y"))

Date in dd/mm/yyyy:  21/06/2020
Date in mmm dd, yyyy:  Jun 21, 2020

Similarly, we can get and format time

import datetime

current_date_time = datetime.datetime.now()

print('Current Time (0-24):', current_date_time.strftime("%H:%M:%S"))
print('Current Time (0-12):', current_date_time.strftime("%I:%M:%S %p"))
print('Current Hour (0-24):', current_date_time.strftime("%H"))
print('Current Hour (0-12):', current_date_time.strftime("%I %p"))
print('Current Minute:', current_date_time.strftime("%M"))
print('Current Second:', current_date_time.strftime("%S"))


Current Time (0-24): 02:54:25
Current Time (0-12): 02:54:25 PM
Current Hour (0-24): 14
Current Hour (0-12): 14 PM
Current Minute: 54
Current Second: 25

Here are some formats that can be used

Format Code	Description	Example
%Y	YYYY	2020
%y	yy	20
%m	mm	06
%b	mmm	Jun
%B	mmmm	June
%d	dd	21
%H	0-24	14
%i	0-12	02
%p	AM/PM	PM
%M	Minute	55
%S	Seconds	32