In Python, how do you convert a `datetime` object to seconds?

Starting from Python 3.3 this becomes super easy with the datetime.timestamp() method. This of course will only be useful if you need the number of seconds from 1970-01-01 UTC.

from datetime import datetime dt = datetime.today() # Get timezone naive now seconds = dt.timestamp() 

The return value will be a float representing even fractions of a second. If the datetime is timezone naive (as in the example above), it will be assumed that the datetime object represents the local time, i.e. It will be the number of seconds from current time at your location to 1970-01-01 UTC.

To get the Unix time (seconds since January 1, 1970):

>>> import datetime, time >>> t = datetime.datetime(2011, 10, 21, 0, 0) >>> time.mktime(t.timetuple()) 1319148000.0 

Maybe off-the-topic: to get UNIX/POSIX time from datetime and convert it back:

>>> import datetime, time >>> dt = datetime.datetime(2011, 10, 21, 0, 0) >>> s = time.mktime(dt.timetuple()) >>> s 1319148000.0 # and back >>> datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(s) datetime.datetime(2011, 10, 21, 0, 0) 

Note that different timezones have impact on results, e.g. my current TZ/DST returns:

>>> time.mktime(datetime.datetime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0).timetuple()) -3600 # -1h 

therefore one should consider normalizing to UTC by using UTC versions of the functions.

Note that previous result can be used to calculate UTC offset of your current timezone. In this example this is +1h, i.e. UTC+0100.

References:

• datetime.date.timetuple
• time.mktime
• datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp
• introduction in time module explains POSIX time, 1970 epoch, UTC, TZ, DST ...

int (t.strftime("%s")) also works

from the python docs:

timedelta.total_seconds() 

Return the total number of seconds contained in the duration. Equivalent to

(td.microseconds + (td.seconds + td.days * 24 * 3600) * 10**6) / 10**6 

computed with true division enabled.

Note that for very large time intervals (greater than 270 years on most platforms) this method will lose microsecond accuracy.

This functionality is new in version 2.7.

I do not see this in all of the answers, although I guess it is the default need:

t_start = datetime.now() sleep(2) t_end = datetime.now() duration = t_end - t_start print(round(duration.total_seconds())) 

If you do not use .total_seconds(), it throws: TypeError: type datetime.timedelta doesn't define __round__ method.

Example:

>>> duration datetime.timedelta(seconds=53, microseconds=621861) >>> round(duration.total_seconds()) 54 >>> duration.seconds 53 

Taking duration.seconds takes only the seconds, leaving aside the microseconds, the same as if you ran math.floor(duration.total_seconds()).

Comparing the 4 most common ways to do this, for accuracy:

Method 1: Manual Calculation

from datetime import datetime total1 = int(datetimeobj.strftime('%S')) total1 += int(datetimeobj.strftime('%M')) * 60 total1 += int(datetimeobj.strftime('%H')) * 60 * 60 total1 += (int(datetimeobj.strftime('%j')) - 1) * 60 * 60 * 24 total1 += (int(datetimeobj.strftime('%Y')) - 1970) * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 print ("Method #1: Manual") print ("Before: %s" % datetimeobj) print ("Seconds: %s " % total1) print ("After: %s" % datetime.fromtimestamp(total1)) 

Output:

Method #1: Manual Before: 1970-10-01 12:00:00 Seconds: 23630400 After: 1970-10-01 16:00:00 

Accuracy test: FAIL (time zone shift)

Method 2: Time Module

import time from datetime import datetime total2 = int(time.mktime(datetimeobj.timetuple())) print ("Method #2: Time Module") print ("Before: %s" % datetimeobj) print ("Seconds: %s " % total2) print ("After: %s" % datetime.fromtimestamp(total2)) 

Output:

Method #2: Time Module Before: 1970-10-01 12:00:00 Seconds: 23616000 After: 1970-10-01 12:00:00 

Accuracy test: PASS

Method 3: Calendar Module

import calendar from datetime import datetime total3 = calendar.timegm(datetimeobj.timetuple()) print ("Method #3: Calendar Module") print ("Before: %s" % datetimeobj) print ("Seconds: %s " % total3) print ("After: %s" % datetime.fromtimestamp(total3)) 

Output:

Method #3: Calendar Module Before: 1970-10-01 12:00:00 Seconds: 23616000 After: 1970-10-01 16:00:00 

Accuracy test: FAIL (time zone shift)

Method 4: Datetime Timestamp

from datetime import datetime total4 = datetimeobj.timestamp() print ("Method #4: datetime timestamp") print ("Before: %s" % datetimeobj) print ("Seconds: %s " % total4) print ("After: %s" % datetime.fromtimestamp(total4)) 

Output:

Method #2: Time Module Before: 1970-10-01 12:00:00 Seconds: 23616000 After: 1970-10-01 12:00:00 

Accuracy test: PASS

Conclusion

• All 4 methods convert datetime to epoch (total seconds)
• Both the Manual method and Calendar module method are time zone aware.
• Both datetime.timestamp() and time.mktime() methods are time zone unaware.
• Simplest method: datetime.timestamp()

To convert a datetime object that represents time in UTC to POSIX timestamp:

from datetime import timezone seconds_since_epoch = utc_time.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc).timestamp() 

To convert a datetime object that represents time in the local timezone to POSIX timestamp:

import tzlocal # $ pip install tzlocal local_timezone = tzlocal.get_localzone() seconds_since_epoch = local_timezone.localize(local_time, is_dst=None).timestamp() 

See How do I convert local time to UTC in Python? If the tz database is available on a given platform; a stdlib-only solution may work.

Follow the links if you need solutions for <3.3 Python versions.

I tried the standard library's calendar.timegm and it works quite well:

# convert a datetime to milliseconds since Epoch def datetime_to_utc_milliseconds(aDateTime): return int(calendar.timegm(aDateTime.timetuple())*1000) 

Ref: https://docs.python.org/2/library/calendar.html#calendar.timegm

Python provides operation on datetime to compute the difference between two date. In your case that would be:

t - datetime.datetime(1970,1,1) 

The value returned is a timedelta object from which you can use the member function total_seconds to get the value in seconds.

(t - datetime.datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds() 

import datetime import math def getSeconds(inputDate): time = datetime.date.today().strftime('%m/%d/%Y') date_time = datetime.datetime.strptime(time, '%m/%d/%Y') msg = inputDate props = msg.split(".") a_timedelta = datetime.timedelta if(len(props)==3): a_timedelta = date_time - datetime.datetime(int(props[0]),int(props[1]),int(props[2])) else: print("Invalid date format") return seconds = math.trunc(a_timedelta.total_seconds()) print(seconds) return seconds 

Example getSeconds("2022.1.1")