Date and Time in Python

We can get data and time information in Python using the datetime module. Let's import it:

import datetime

Date

In the datetime module we can use the date class, which has today() to load the current day's data:

date = datetime.date.today()
print(date)

Result example:

2023-01-04

We can also get each date information separately:

day = datetime.date.today().day
month = datetime.date.today().month
year = datetime.date.today().year

print(day)
print(month)
print(year)

Result example:

4
1
2023

Time

To get the time, we'll use the datetime class and its now() method:

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

Result example:

2023-01-04 14:28:19.041413

Note that the time schedule is organized into:

hour:minute:second.microsecond

Time formatting

We can change the way the time is being displayed through the strftime() method. By default, we have %d for day, %m for month, %y for year, %H for hour, %M for minute and %S for seconds. Let's use new variables to save these formatted values:

format1 = now.strftime('%d/%m/%y')
print(format1)

format2 = now.strftime('%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S')
print(format2)

Result example:

01/04/23
04.01.2023 14:28:19

Note that using %Y, we have the year displayed with 4 characters.