Date, Time, and Datetime

In Python, the date, time, and datetime classes are part of the datetime module. These classes allow you to work with dates, times, and combined date and time values.

Date Class

The date class is used to represent and manipulate dates. It allows you to work with year, month, and day values. Here’s an example of creating a date object:

import datetime

d = datetime.date(2021, 10, 15)

Time Class

The time class is used to represent and manipulate time values. It allows you to work with hour, minute, second, microsecond, and timezone information. Here’s an example of creating a time object:

import datetime

t = datetime.time(12, 30, 45)

Datetime Class

The datetime class is used to represent and manipulate combined date and time values. It combines the functionalities of both the date and time classes. Here’s an example of creating a datetime object:

import datetime

dt = datetime.datetime(2021, 10, 15, 12, 30, 45)

Working with Date, Time, and Datetime Objects

Once you have created date, time, or datetime objects, you can perform various operations and manipulate them.

Accessing Attributes

You can access various attributes of a date, time, or datetime object such as year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and microsecond.

print(dt.year)  # Output: 2021
print(dt.month)  # Output: 10
print(dt.day)  # Output: 15
print(dt.hour)  # Output: 12
print(dt.minute)  # Output: 30
print(dt.second)  # Output: 45

Formatting and Parsing

You can format a date, time, or datetime object into a specific string format using the strftime() method. Conversely, you can parse a string into a date, time, or datetime object using the strptime() method.

formatted_date = dt.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
print(formatted_date)  # Output: 2021-10-15

parsed_date = datetime.datetime.strptime("2021-10-15", "%Y-%m-%d")
print(parsed_date)  # Output: 2021-10-15 00:00:00

Arithmetic Operations

You can perform arithmetic operations on date and datetime objects to calculate time intervals or create new dates.

new_date = dt + datetime.timedelta(days=7)
print(new_date)  # Output: 2021-10-22 12:30:45

time_interval = new_date - dt
print(time_interval)  # Output: 7 days, 0:00:00

Conclusion

The date, time, and datetime classes in Python provide powerful features to work with dates, times, and combined date and time values. You can perform various operations, access attributes, format and parse strings, and perform arithmetic calculations using these classes. They are essential in many applications where time-related computations are involved.