Find Monday's date with Python

Question

How do I find the previous Monday's date, based off of the current date using Python? I thought maybe I could use: datetime.weekday() to do it, but I am getting stuck.

I basically want to find today's date and Mondays date to construct a date range query in django using: created__range=(start_date, end_date).

Answer 1

>>> import datetime >>> today = datetime.date.today() >>> today + datetime.timedelta(days=-today.weekday(), weeks=1) datetime.date(2009, 10, 26) 

Some words of explanation:

Take todays date. Subtract the number of days which already passed this week (this gets you 'last' monday). Add one week.

Edit: The above is for 'next monday', but since you were looking for 'last monday' you could use

today - datetime.timedelta(days=today.weekday()) 

Answer 2

ChristopheD's post is close to what you want. I don't have enough rep to make a comment :(

Instead of (which actually gives you the next upcoming monday):

 >>> today + datetime.timedelta(days=-today.weekday(), weeks=1) datetime.date(2009, 10, 26) 

I would say:

 >>> last_monday = today - datetime.timedelta(days=today.weekday()) 

If you want the previous week, add the 'weeks=1' parameter.

This makes the code more readable since you are subtracting a timedelta. This clears up any confusion caused by adding a timedelta that has negative and positive offsets.