Python Check if a Minute has passed

Question

Im running part of a script just once per minute and came up with this:

def minutePassed(oldminute):
    currentminute = time.gmtime()[4]

    if ((currentminute - oldminute) >= 1) or (oldminute == 59 and currentminute >= 0):
        return True
    else:
        return False

Problem here is that if the minute is 59 it runs everytime until its past that time - its not much of a bother performance wise for me. But I still dont like it happening!

I thought of something like this now:

def minutePassed(oldminute):
    currentminute = time.gmtime()[4]

    if ((currentminute - oldminute) >= 1) or (oldminute == 59 and currentminute >= 0 and ran == false):
        ran = True
        return True
    else:
        return False

Then on another part of the script I turn ran false again when the minute is != 59 and the variable isnt already false - but that seems crude?

On another note - is there any other way to check if a minute has passed? Maybe im making things complicated ...

Edit: Maybe I was not clear enough:

1. Run only ONCE per minute.
2. Execution time varies by many seconds but takes less then 30s.

Im looking at timedelta now.

Answer 1

Don't work with minutes like that; if the time is, for example, 00:00:59, your code will believe a minute has passed the very next second.

Instead, use something like time.time(), which returns seconds passed since the epoch:

def minute_passed(oldepoch):
    return time.time() - oldepoch >= 60

That can still be off by almost a second for the same reasons, but that's probably more acceptable.