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How do I convert a datetime.datetime object (e.g., the return value of datetime.datetime.now()) to a datetime.date object in Python?

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  • 42
    If you just need this for datetime.datetime.now(), please note that there is a method datetime.date.today(). Commented May 6, 2016 at 1:04
  • 1
    if you have already imported datetime e.g. from datetime import datetime you can just add date from datetime import datetime, date Commented Feb 18, 2019 at 13:06

10 Answers 10

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1607

Use the date() method:

datetime.datetime.now().date()
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4 Comments

To get in UTC which can be very helpful --> datetime.datetime.utcnow() and correspondingly datetime.datetime.utcnow().date()
Thanks @SeanColombo, current date in a particular timezone should be datetime.datetime.now(pytz.timezone('US/Pacific')).date()
datetime.datetime.utcnow() is deprecated see docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#datetime.datetime replace with datetime.now(timezone.utc). The OP is actually after date so this is moot.
Given from datetime import datetime, date, timezone and one using a timezone with a non-zero offset, then datetime.now(timezone.utc).date() can be different from datetime.now().date() (the latter being also available as date.today()).
173

From the documentation:

datetime.datetime.date()

Return date object with same year, month and day.

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80

You use the datetime.datetime.date() method:

datetime.datetime.now().date()

Obviously, the expression above can (and should IMHO :) be written as:

datetime.date.today()
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4 Comments

to be fair, this answer (using .today()) is the most pythonic for the stated example question.
If you use today, be careful when comparing a date. today() has an hour component too. so if you do: losdat = datetime.datetime.strptime(losdatstr, '%d%m%Y')and then if losdat < datetime.datetime.today(): it will always be true because losdatwill have a time component of midnight which will fall before the timestamp of today()
@DennisDecoene: why use datetime.datetime.today() instead of datetime.date.today(), when one wants a datetime.date object?
@tzot Yes that was also what I wanted to point out but was unclear about.
66

You can convert a datetime object to a date with the date() method of the date time object, as follows:

<datetime_object>.date()
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14

Answer updated to Python 3.7 and more

Here is how you can turn a date-and-time object

(aka datetime.datetime object, the one that is stored inside models.DateTimeField django model field)

into a date object (aka datetime.date object):

from datetime import datetime #your date-and-time object # let's supposed it is defined as datetime_element = datetime(2020, 7, 10, 12, 56, 54, 324893) # where # datetime_element = datetime(year, month, day, hour, minute, second, milliseconds) # WHAT YOU WANT: your date-only object date_element = datetime_element.date()

And just to be clear, if you print those elements, here is the output :

print(datetime_element)

2020-07-10 12:56:54.324893


print(date_element)

2020-07-10

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12

you could enter this code form for (today date & Names of the Day & hour) : datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%y-%m-%d %a %H:%M:%S')

'19-09-09 Mon 17:37:56'

and enter this code for (today date simply): datetime.date.today().strftime('%y-%m-%d') '19-09-10'

for object : datetime.datetime.now().date() datetime.datetime.today().date() datetime.datetime.utcnow().date() datetime.datetime.today().time() datetime.datetime.utcnow().date() datetime.datetime.utcnow().time()

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OP wanted to get datetime.date object, and not string, which strftime would return (ref: docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#datetime.date.strftime).
6 
import time import datetime # use mktime to step by one day # end - the last day, numdays - count of days to step back def gen_dates_list(end, numdays): start = end - datetime.timedelta(days=numdays+1) end = int(time.mktime(end.timetuple())) start = int(time.mktime(start.timetuple())) # 86400 s = 1 day return xrange(start, end, 86400) # if you need reverse the list of dates for dt in reversed(gen_dates_list(datetime.datetime.today(), 100)): print datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(dt).date()
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1 Comment

Did you mean to post this answer here? It looks to me like you're answer is directed towards a different question.
2

I use data.strftime('%y-%m-%d') with lambda to transfer column to date

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-1 
Solved: AttributeError: 'Series' object has no attribute 'date'

You can use as below,

df["date"] = pd.to_datetime(df["date"]).dt.date

where in above code date contains both date and time (2020-09-21 22:32:00), using above code we can get only date as (2020-09-21)

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1 Comment

Pandas answer. Not relevant.
-4

If you are using pandas then this can solve your problem:

Lets say that you have a variable called start_time of type datetime64 in your dataframe then you can get the date part like this:

df.start_time.dt.date
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3 Comments

I don't think the question was about pandas.
You are right, I had pandas on my mind when I was working on this problem.
Wouldn't it make sance to either delete this post or clarify that. It is missleading like this.

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