Python Dateutil Module

#python #dateutil #todayilearned

Python has the built-in datetime module which is used for manipulating dates and times from simple to complex ways. While this may be enough for a number of use cases, the dateutil module provides powerful extensions to this. Some cool features that we would be exploring are:

Computing of relative deltas (next Monday, next week, last week of the previous month, next five years, etc). 🤔
Computing of relative deltas between two given dates and/or datetime objects. 🤯

Getting Started ✊

dateutil can be installed from PyPI using pip:

pip install python-dateutil

...or if you're on Python3:

pip3 install python-dateutil

Diving In 🙌

Add some time-traveling imports:

from datetime import *
from dateutil.relativedelta import *
import calendar

To get the date and time right now:

NOW = datetime.now()
print(NOW)
# 2019-12-09 11:32:20.295752

...or just the date:

TODAY = date.today()
print(TODAY)
# 2019-12-09

To get next week:

next_week = TODAY + relativedelta(weeks=+1)
print(next_week)
# 2019-12-16

...or next month:

next_month = TODAY + relativedelta(months=+1)
print(next_month)
# 2020-01-09

We can even combine them(next month plus one week):

next_month_plus_one_week = TODAY + relativedelta(months=+1, weeks=+1)
print(next_month_plus_one_week)
# 2020-01-16

... and even add time(next month plus one week at 1pm):

added_time = TODAY + relativedelta(months=+1, weeks=+1, hour=13)
print(added_time)
# 2020-01-16 13:00:00

Of course we can go backwards:

last_week = TODAY + relativedelta(weeks=-1)
print(last_week)
# 2019-12-02

last_month = TODAY + relativedelta(months=-1)
print(last_month)
# 2019-11-09

... and we can mix things up a bit(one month before one year):

one_month_before_one_year = TODAY + relativedelta(years=+1, months=-1)
print(one_month_before_one_year)
# 2020-11-09

BTW adding one month will never cross the month boundary:

print(date(2020, 1, 27) + relativedelta(months=+1))
# 2020-02-27
print(date(2020, 1, 31) + relativedelta(months=+1))
# 2020-02-29 (2020 is a leap year! #todayilearned)
print(date(2020, 1, 31) + relativedelta(months=+2))
#2020-03-31

...this logic also applies for years, even on leap years:

# Note that 2020 is a leap year
print(date(2020, 2, 28) + relativedelta(years=+1))
# 2021-02-28
print(date(2020, 2, 29) + relativedelta(years=+1))
# 2021-02-28

# Subtracting 1 year from Feb 29 2020 will print Feb 28 2019
print(date(2020, 2, 29) + relativedelta(years=-1))
# 2019-02-28

We can also make use of weekdays:

# Note that TODAY is a Monday
this_TGIF = TODAY + relativedelta(weekday=FR)
print(this_TGIF)
# 2019-12-13

# Tuesday of next week, not tomorrow
next_tuesday = TODAY + relativedelta(weeks=+1, weekday=TU)
print(next_tuesday)
#2019-12-17

# Making use of the calendar import
next_tuesday_calendar = TODAY + relativedelta(weeks=+1, weekday=calendar.TUESDAY)
print(next_tuesday_calendar)
# 2019-12-17

We can also find a date using yearday:

# Get the 237th day of 2020
print(date(2020, 1, 1) + relativedelta(yearday=237))
# 2020-08-24

Getting the difference of two dates is pretty straightforward :

# Setting the date
# year - month - day - hour - minutes
nasa_birthday = datetime(1958, 7, 29, 0, 0)
age_of_nasa = relativedelta(TODAY, nasa_birthday)
print(age_of_nasa)
# relativedelta(years=+61, months=+4, days=+10)

... and formatting is also easy-peasy:

print('It has been {} years, {} months and {} days since the birth of NASA 🚀'
      .format(age_of_nasa.years,
              age_of_nasa.months,
              age_of_nasa.days,))
#It has been 61 years, 4 months and 10 days since the birth of NASA 🚀