python: difference of two timedate strings

Question

I have two date strings (taken from user input and can vary greatly)

s1 = '2011:10:01:10:30:00'
s2 = '2011:10:01:11:15:00'

I wish to find the difference between the two as minutes.

How should I proceed to tackle this ?

Answer 1

import datetime

d1 = datetime.datetime.strptime('2011:10:01:10:30:00', '%Y:%m:%d:%H:%M:%S')
d2 = datetime.datetime.strptime('2011:10:01:11:15:00', '%Y:%m:%d:%H:%M:%S')
diff = (d2 - d1).total_seconds() / 60

If you need to handle arbitrary datetime formats, I don't believe the built in datetime library will do that for you. Perhaps check out something like:

http://www.egenix.com/products/python/mxBase/mxDateTime/

Answer 2

Using the datetime module, parse into a datetime object using strptime, then subtract. You'll get a timedelta. Then use timedelta.total_seconds() and divide by 60.

Answer 3

Use datetime to parse the string and convert into a base epoch time. Do the math. Convert back:

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> s1 = '2011:10:01:10:30:00'
>>> s2 = '2011:10:01:11:15:00'
>>> d1=datetime.strptime(s1,'%Y:%m:%d:%I:%M:%S')
>>> d2=datetime.strptime(s2,'%Y:%m:%d:%I:%M:%S')
>>> d2-d1
datetime.timedelta(0, 2700)
>>> (d2-d1).total_seconds()/60
45.0

If you are looking for arbitrary date string parsing, check out DateUtil and the parse function.

Answer 4

The time module can be helpful for this.

import time

s1 = '2011:10:01:10:30:00'
s2 = '2011:10:01:11:15:00'

s1Time = time.strptime(s1, "%Y:%m:%d:%H:%M:%S")
s2Time = time.strptime(s2, "%Y:%m:%d:%H:%M:%S")

deltaInMinutes = (time.mktime(s2Time) - time.mktime(s1Time)) / 60.0
print deltaInMinutes, "minutes"