Python Dates

Python Datetime Module

A date in Python is not a data type of its own, but we can import a module named datetime to work with dates as date objects.

Getting the Current Date

import datetime

x = datetime.datetime.now()
print(x)

The date contains year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and microsecond. The datetime module has many methods to return information about the date object.

Creating Date Objects

To create a date, we can use the datetime() class (constructor) of the datetime module. The datetime() class requires three parameters to create a date: year, month, day.

import datetime

x = datetime.datetime(2020, 5, 17)
print(x)

The strftime() Method

The datetime object has a method for formatting date objects into readable strings. The method is called strftime(), and takes one parameter, format, to specify the format of the returned string.

import datetime
x = datetime.datetime.now()

print("Year:", x.strftime("%Y"))
print("Weekday:", x.strftime("%A"))
print("Month:", x.strftime("%B"))

• %a : Weekday, short version (Wed)
• %A : Weekday, full version (Wednesday)
• %w : Weekday as a number 0-6 (0 is Sunday)
• %d : Day of month 01-31
• %b : Month name, short version (Dec)
• %B : Month name, full version (December)
• %m : Month as a number 01-12
• %y : Year, short version, without century (18)
• %Y : Year, full version (2018)