I'm using:
str(datetime.datetime.today()).split()[0]
to return today's date in the YYYY-MM-DD
format.
Is there a less crude way to achieve this?
I'm using:
str(datetime.datetime.today()).split()[0]
to return today's date in the YYYY-MM-DD
format.
Is there a less crude way to achieve this?
You can use strftime:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.today().strftime('%Y-%m-%d')
'2021-01-26'
Additionally, for anyone also looking for a zero-padded Hour, Minute, and Second at the end: (Comment by Gabriel Staples)
>>> datetime.today().strftime('%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S')
'2021-01-26-16:50:03'
You can use datetime.date.today()
and convert the resulting datetime.date
object to a string:
from datetime import date
today = str(date.today())
print(today) # '2017-12-26'
I always use the isoformat()
method for this.
from datetime import date
today = date.today().isoformat()
print(today) # '2018-12-05'
Note that this also works on datetime
objects if you need the time in the standard ISO 8601 format as well.
from datetime import datetime
now = datetime.today().isoformat()
print(now) # '2018-12-05T11:15:55.126382'
Datetime is just lovely if you like remembering funny codes. Wouldn't you prefer simplicity?
>>> import arrow
>>> arrow.now().format('YYYY-MM-DD')
'2017-02-17'
This module is clever enough to understand what you mean.
Just do pip install arrow
.
Addendum: In answer to those who become exercised over this answer let me just say that arrow represents one of the alternative approaches to dealing with dates in Python. That's mostly what I meant to suggest.
You can use pd.to_datetime
from the pandas library. Here are various options, depending on what you want returned.
import pandas as pd
pd.to_datetime('today') # pd.to_datetime('now')
# Timestamp('2019-03-27 00:00:10.958567')
As a python datetime object,
pd.to_datetime('today').to_pydatetime()
# datetime.datetime(2019, 4, 18, 3, 50, 42, 587629)
As a formatted date string,
pd.to_datetime('today').isoformat()
# '2019-04-18T04:03:32.493337'
# Or, `strftime` for custom formats.
pd.to_datetime('today').strftime('%Y-%m-%d')
# '2019-03-27'
To get just the date from the timestamp, call Timestamp.date
.
pd.to_datetime('today').date()
# datetime.date(2019, 3, 27)
Aside from to_datetime
, you can directly instantiate a Timestamp
object using,
pd.Timestamp('today') # pd.Timestamp('now')
# Timestamp('2019-04-18 03:43:33.233093')
pd.Timestamp('today').to_pydatetime()
# datetime.datetime(2019, 4, 18, 3, 53, 46, 220068)
If you want to make your Timestamp timezone aware, pass a timezone to the tz
argument.
pd.Timestamp('now', tz='America/Los_Angeles')
# Timestamp('2019-04-18 03:59:02.647819-0700', tz='America/Los_Angeles')
This one's good, I promise.
If you're working with pendulum, there are some interesting choices. You can get the current timestamp using now()
or today's date using today()
.
import pendulum
pendulum.now()
# DateTime(2019, 3, 27, 0, 2, 41, 452264, tzinfo=Timezone('America/Los_Angeles'))
pendulum.today()
# DateTime(2019, 3, 27, 0, 0, 0, tzinfo=Timezone('America/Los_Angeles'))
Additionally, you can also get tomorrow()
or yesterday()
's date directly without having to do any additional timedelta arithmetic.
pendulum.yesterday()
# DateTime(2019, 3, 26, 0, 0, 0, tzinfo=Timezone('America/Los_Angeles'))
pendulum.tomorrow()
# DateTime(2019, 3, 28, 0, 0, 0, tzinfo=Timezone('America/Los_Angeles'))
There are various formatting options available.
pendulum.now().to_date_string()
# '2019-03-27'
pendulum.now().to_formatted_date_string()
# 'Mar 27, 2019'
pendulum.now().to_day_datetime_string()
# 'Wed, Mar 27, 2019 12:04 AM'
A lot of pandas users stumble upon this question because they believe it is a python question more than a pandas one. This answer aims to be useful to folks who are already using these libraries and would be interested to know that there are ways to achieve these results within the scope of the library itself.
If you are not working with pandas or pendulum already, I definitely do not recommend installing them just for the sake of running this code! These libraries are heavy and come with a lot of plumbing under the hood. It is not worth the trouble when you can use the standard library instead.