Can you do sums with a datetime in Python?

Question

I know how to get the date:

from datetime import datetime
time = datetime.now()
print(time)

But is there a way where you can work out the days/hours until a certain date, maybe storing the date as an integer or something? Thx for all answers

Answer 1

Just create another datetime object and subtract which will give you a timedelta object.

from datetime import datetime
now = datetime.now()
then = datetime(2016,1,1,0,0,0)
diff = then - now
print(diff)

print(diff.total_seconds())

15 days, 3:42:21.408581
1309365.968044

If you want to take user input:

from datetime import datetime


while True:
    inp = input("Enter date in format yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss")
    try:
        then = datetime.strptime(inp, "%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S")
        break
    except ValueError:
        print("Invalid input")

now = datetime.now()
diff = then - now
print(diff)

Demo:

$Enter date in format yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss2016/01/01 00:00:00
15 days, 3:04:51.960110