How do I find the time difference between two datetime objects in python?

Question

How do I tell the time difference in minutes between two datetime objects?

Answer 1

>>> import datetime
>>> a = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> b = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> c = b - a
datetime.timedelta(0, 8, 562000)
>>> divmod(c.days * 86400 + c.seconds, 60)
(0, 8)      # 0 minutes, 8 seconds

Answer 2

New at Python 2.7 is the timedelta instance method .total_seconds(). From the Python docs, this is equivalent to (td.microseconds + (td.seconds + td.days * 24 * 3600) * 10**6) / 10**6.

Reference: http://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html#datetime.timedelta.total_seconds

>>> import datetime
>>> time1 = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> time2 = datetime.datetime.now() # waited a few minutes before pressing enter
>>> elapsedTime = time2 - time1
>>> elapsedTime
datetime.timedelta(0, 125, 749430)
>>> divmod(elapsedTime.total_seconds(), 60)
(2.0, 5.749430000000004) # divmod returns quotient and remainder
# 2 minutes, 5.74943 seconds

Answer 3

Using datetime example

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> then = datetime(2012, 3, 5, 23, 8, 15)        # Random date in the past
>>> now  = datetime.now()                         # Now
>>> duration = now - then                         # For build-in functions
>>> duration_in_s = duration.total_seconds()      # Total number of seconds between dates

Duration in years

>>> years = divmod(duration_in_s, 31556926)[0]    # Seconds in a year=31556926.

Duration in days

>>> days  = duration.days                         # Build-in datetime function
>>> days  = divmod(duration_in_s, 86400)[0]       # Seconds in a day = 86400

Duration in hours

>>> hours = divmod(duration_in_s, 3600)[0]        # Seconds in an hour = 3600

Duration in minutes

>>> minutes = divmod(duration_in_s, 60)[0]        # Seconds in a minute = 60

Duration in seconds

>>> seconds = duration.seconds                    # Build-in datetime function
>>> seconds = duration_in_s

Duration in microseconds

>>> microseconds = duration.microseconds          # Build-in datetime function  

Total duration between the two dates

>>> days    = divmod(duration_in_s, 86400)        # Get days (without [0]!)
>>> hours   = divmod(days[1], 3600)               # Use remainder of days to calc hours
>>> minutes = divmod(hours[1], 60)                # Use remainder of hours to calc minutes
>>> seconds = divmod(minutes[1], 1)               # Use remainder of minutes to calc seconds
>>> print("Time between dates: %d days, %d hours, %d minutes and %d seconds" % (days[0], hours[0], minutes[0], seconds[0]))

or simply:

>>> print(now - then)

Answer 4

Just subtract one from the other. You get a timedelta object with the difference.

>>> import datetime
>>> d1 = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> d2 = datetime.datetime.now() # after a 5-second or so pause
>>> d2 - d1
datetime.timedelta(0, 5, 203000)

You can convert dd.days, dd.seconds and dd.microseconds to minutes.

Answer 5

If a, b are datetime objects then to find the time difference between them in Python 3:

from datetime import timedelta

time_difference = a - b
time_difference_in_minutes = time_difference / timedelta(minutes=1)

On earlier Python versions:

time_difference_in_minutes = time_difference.total_seconds() / 60

If a, b are naive datetime objects such as returned by datetime.now() then the result may be wrong if the objects represent local time with different UTC offsets e.g., around DST transitions or for past/future dates. More details: Find if 24 hrs have passed between datetimes - Python.

To get reliable results, use UTC time or timezone-aware datetime objects.

Answer 6

Use divmod:

now = int(time.time()) # epoch seconds
then = now - 90000 # some time in the past

d = divmod(now-then,86400)  # days
h = divmod(d[1],3600)  # hours
m = divmod(h[1],60)  # minutes
s = m[1]  # seconds

print '%d days, %d hours, %d minutes, %d seconds' % (d[0],h[0],m[0],s)

Answer 7

This is how I get the number of hours that elapsed between two datetime.datetime objects:

before = datetime.datetime.now()
after  = datetime.datetime.now()
hours  = math.floor(((after - before).seconds) / 3600)

Answer 8

To just find the number of days: timedelta has a 'days' attribute. You can simply query that.

>>>from datetime import datetime, timedelta
>>>d1 = datetime(2015, 9, 12, 13, 9, 45)
>>>d2 = datetime(2015, 8, 29, 21, 10, 12)
>>>d3 = d1- d2
>>>print d3
13 days, 15:59:33
>>>print d3.days
13

Answer 9

Just thought it might be useful to mention formatting as well in regards to timedelta. strptime() parses a string representing a time according to a format.

from datetime import datetime

datetimeFormat = '%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S.%f'    
time1 = '2016/03/16 10:01:28.585'
time2 = '2016/03/16 09:56:28.067'  
time_dif = datetime.strptime(time1, datetimeFormat) - datetime.strptime(time2,datetimeFormat)
print(time_dif)

This will output: 0:05:00.518000

Answer 10

I use somethign like this :

from datetime import datetime

def check_time_difference(t1: datetime, t2: datetime):
    t1_date = datetime(
        t1.year,
        t1.month,
        t1.day,
        t1.hour,
        t1.minute,
        t1.second)

    t2_date = datetime(
        t2.year,
        t2.month,
        t2.day,
        t2.hour,
        t2.minute,
        t2.second)

    t_elapsed = t1_date - t2_date

    return t_elapsed

# usage 
f = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S+01:00"
t1 = datetime.strptime("2018-03-07 22:56:57+01:00", f)
t2 = datetime.strptime("2018-03-07 22:48:05+01:00", f)
elapsed_time = check_time_difference(t1, t2)

print(elapsed_time)
#return : 0:08:52

Answer 11

this is to find the difference between current time and 9.30 am

t=datetime.now()-datetime.now().replace(hour=9,minute=30)

Answer 12

This is my approach using mktime.

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from time import mktime

yesterday = datetime.now() - timedelta(days=1)
today = datetime.now()

difference_in_seconds = abs(mktime(yesterday.timetuple()) - mktime(today.timetuple()))
difference_in_minutes = difference_in_seconds / 60

Answer 13

In Other ways to get difference between date;

import dateutil.parser
import datetime
last_sent_date = "" # date string
timeDifference = current_date - dateutil.parser.parse(last_sent_date)
time_difference_in_minutes = (int(timeDifference.days) * 24 * 60) + int((timeDifference.seconds) / 60)

So get output in Min.

Thanks