How to compare two dates?

Use time

Let's say you have the initial dates as strings like these:

date1 = "31/12/2015" date2 = "01/01/2016" 

You can do the following:

newdate1 = time.strptime(date1, "%d/%m/%Y") newdate2 = time.strptime(date2, "%d/%m/%Y") 

to convert them to python's date format. Then, the comparison is obvious:

• newdate1 > newdate2 will return False
• newdate1 < newdate2 will return True

datetime.date(2011, 1, 1) < datetime.date(2011, 1, 2) will return True.

datetime.date(2011, 1, 1) - datetime.date(2011, 1, 2) will return datetime.timedelta(-1).

datetime.date(2011, 1, 1) - datetime.date(2011, 1, 2) will return datetime.timedelta(1).

see the docs.

Other answers using datetime and comparisons also work for time only, without a date.

For example, to check if right now it is more or less than 8:00 a.m., we can use:

import datetime eight_am = datetime.time( 8,0,0 ) # Time, without a date 

And later compare with:

datetime.datetime.now().time() > eight_am 

which will return True

With python as the easiest language available it is pretty easy to compare dates in python the python operators <, > and == fit wonderfully with datetime objects. each of them has their own meaning in python:

• < means the date is earlier than the first
• > means the date comes later
• == means the date is same as the first So, for your case:

import datetime date = datetime.datetime(2000, 1, 1) # Replace with whatever you want now = datetime.datetime.now() # You can even find the current date and time using this expression if date < now: print('past') elif date > now: print('future') else: print('present') # This would print "past" 

import datetime from dateutil.parser import parse # Read in the list of holiday dates as a generator expression with open('holiday.txt') as f: holiday_dates = (parse(line.strip()) for line in f) # Get the current date today = datetime.datetime.now().date() # Check if the current date is past the last holiday date if today > max(holiday_dates).date(): # Send email to admin print("Please update the holiday.txt file") 

We use a generator expression to read in the holiday dates, which returns a generator object that yields the parsed dates one at a time. We then use the max() function to find and compare the latest holiday date with the current date. We also use the date() method to convert the datetime objects to date objects, which allows us to compare them directly with the today variable.

Note that the dateutil.parser.parse() method can handle a wider variety of date formats than datetime.datetime.strptime(), so you may not need to specify a format string for the dates in your file. However, if you know the exact format of the dates in your file, you can still use strptime() to parse them if you prefer.

For calculating days in two dates difference, can be done like below:

import datetime import math issuedate = datetime(2019,5,9) #calculate the issue datetime current_date = datetime.datetime.now() #calculate the current datetime diff_date = current_date - issuedate #//calculate the date difference with time also amount = fine #you want change if diff_date.total_seconds() > 0.0: #its matching your condition days = math.ceil(diff_date.total_seconds()/86400) #calculate days (in one day 86400 seconds) deductable_amount = round(amount,2)*days #calclulated fine for all days 

Becuase if one second is more with the due date then we have to charge