How do I compare an object datetime.datetime.now().time() with an integer like 12?
I need to make an if condition, which checks whether the time of day is before 12PM or after 12PM and take corresponding action.
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time objects have attributes which correspond hour, minute, second, microsecond, and timezone. See docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.htmlR. Arctor– R. Arctor2019-10-04 20:04:19 +00:00Commented Oct 4, 2019 at 20:04
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6 Answers
d = datetime.datetime.now().time()
if d.hour > 12:
...
3 Comments
Sir Muffington
Is this better than the object comparison?
Sir Muffington
I've read that Python specially uses the datetime object, because it's the best way to compare time.
martineau
This does not check to see if the time is after 12 pm, it checks if it's 1 pm or later — in other words, 12:01 pm is after 12 pm, but just checking the current hour won't tell you that...
Simple: you don't. You create a datetime object to compare instead:
import datetime
a = datetime.datetime.now().time()
b = datetime.time(12, 00, 00, 000000)
if a < b:
print("Do x here")
else:
print("Do y here")
3 Comments
Sir Muffington
No, it wasn't. I just figured it out by myself thanks to @R. Arctor's comment. And I will select the answer with the most votes (currently it's still a tie).
martineau
I see…well, technically, this code does not answer the question because it isn't comparing a
datetime to an integer.Sir Muffington
It does: you can't compare an integer with an datetime object. None of the other answers do that too. AFAIK, it's impossible.
The class datetime.time() has an hour attribute that you can use for your purpose.
import datetime
datetime_object = datetime.datetime.now().time()
if datetime_object.hour >= 12:
print("Wow it's after 12 pm")
else:
print("Wow it's before 12 pm")
Comments
This can be easily checked using .strftime("%p"). Just have a look into below example.
Based on your area time may differ but still you can test it for different timezones. Check pytz for that.
If you get
- PM, that means, it's after 12 PM inclusive (and before midnight)
- AM, that means, it's before 12 PM (and from midnight onwards)
Example code:
import datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()
print(now) # 2019-10-04 22:11:46.655252
print(now.strftime("%p")) # PM
print(now.time().strftime("%p")) # PM
Comments
Apart from above mentioned solutions, you could also do this:
import time
d = time.localtime()
if d.tm_hour > 12 && d.tm_sec>0:
...
There is a thread that discuss why using time module could be better than datetime.
Comments
You can't compare a datetime instance with an integer directly, but you can convert one to an integer by first using the timestamp() method to convert it to a floating-point value, and then converting that to an integer with the built-in round() function.
In the code below, an integer representing noon on the current day is created, and then that's compared to an integer representing the current date and time.
Since this requires one or more intermediate steps, it would probably be more efficient to just create a datatime object representing 12 pm on the current day and compare that to current date and time (as you do in your own answer).
import datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()
noon = datetime.datetime(now.year, now.month, now.day, hour=12)
noon_today = round(noon.timestamp()) # Convert to integer.
now_as_int = round(now.timestamp())
if now_as_int < noon_today:
print("before noon")
else:
print("noon or later")