How to get the Python date object for last Wednesday

Question

Using Python I would like to find the date object for last Wednesday. I can figure out where today is on the calendar using isocalendar, and determine whether or not we need to go back a week to get to the previous Wednesday. However, I can't figure out how to create a new date object with that information. Essentially, I need to figure out how to create a date from an iso calendar tuple.

from datetime import date
today = date.today()
if today.isocalendar()[2] > 3: #day of week starting with Monday
    #get date for Wednesday of last week
else:
    #get date for Wednesday of this current week

Answer 1

I think you want this. If the specified day is a Wednesday it will give you that day.

from datetime import date
from datetime import timedelta
from calendar import WEDNESDAY

today = date.today()
offset = (today.weekday() - WEDNESDAY) % 7
last_wednesday = today - timedelta(days=offset)

Example, the last wednesday for every day in March:

for x in xrange(1, 32):
    today = date(year=2010, month=3, day=x)
    offset = (today.weekday() - WEDNESDAY) % 7
    last_wednesday = today - timedelta(days=offset)

    print last_wednesday