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

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 2

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 3

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 4

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 5

You may find this fast snippet useful in not so much long time intervals:

    from datetime import datetime as dttm
    time_ago = dttm(2017, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1348)
    delta = dttm.now() - time_ago
    days = delta.days # can be converted into years which complicates a bit…
    hours, minutes, seconds = map(int, delta.__format__('').split('.')[0].split(' ')[-1].split(':'))

tested on Python v.3.8.6

Answer 6

>>> import datetime
>>> first_time = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> later_time = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> difference = later_time - first_time
>>> seconds_in_day = 24 * 60 * 60
datetime.timedelta(0, 8, 562000)
>>> divmod(difference.days * seconds_in_day + difference.seconds, 60)
(0, 8)      # 0 minutes, 8 seconds

Subtracting the later time from the first time difference = later_time - first_time creates a datetime object that only holds the difference. In the example above it is 0 minutes, 8 seconds and 562000 microseconds.