How to add hours to current time in python

Question

I am able to get the current time as below:

from datetime import datetime
str(datetime.now())[11:19]

Result

'19:43:20'

Now, I am trying to add 9 hours to the above time, how can I add hours to current time in Python?

Answer 1

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

nine_hours_from_now = datetime.now() + timedelta(hours=9)
#datetime.datetime(2012, 12, 3, 23, 24, 31, 774118)

And then use string formatting to get the relevant pieces:

>>> '{:%H:%M:%S}'.format(nine_hours_from_now)
'23:24:31'

If you're only formatting the datetime then you can use:

>>> format(nine_hours_from_now, '%H:%M:%S')
'23:24:31'

Or, as @eumiro has pointed out in comments - strftime

Answer 2

Import datetime and timedelta:

>>> from datetime import datetime, timedelta
>>> str(datetime.now() + timedelta(hours=9))[11:19]
'01:41:44'

But the better way is:

>>> (datetime.now() + timedelta(hours=9)).strftime('%H:%M:%S')
'01:42:05'

You can refer strptime and strftime behavior to better understand how python processes dates and time field

Answer 3

This is an answer which is significant for nowadays (python 3.9 or later).

Use strptime to create a datetime object from the timestring. Add 9 hours with timedelta, and match the time format with the timestring you have.

    from datetime import datetime, timedelta
    from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo

    time_format = "%H:%M:%S"

    timestring = datetime.strptime(str(datetime.now() + timedelta(hours=9))[11:19], time_format)

    #You can then apply custom time formatting as well as a timezone.

    TIMEZONE = [Add a timezone] #https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones

    custom_time_format = "%H:%M"

    time_modification = datetime.fromtimestamp(timestring.timestamp(), ZoneInfo(TIMEZONE)).__format__(custom_time_format)

While I think it's more meaningful to apply a timezone, you don't necessarily need to, so you can also simply do that:

time_format = "%H:%M:%S"

timestring = datetime.strptime(str(datetime.now() + timedelta(hours=9))[11:19], time_format)

time_modification = datetime.fromtimestamp(timestring.timestamp())

datetime

https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html

strftime-and-strptime-format-codes

https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-strptime-format-codes

timedelta

https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#datetime.timedelta

zoneinfo

https://docs.python.org/3/library/zoneinfo.html#module-zoneinfo

Answer 4

This works for me working with seconds not hours and also using a function to convert back to UTC time.

from datetime import timezone, datetime, timedelta 
import datetime


def utc_converter(dt):
    dt = datetime.datetime.now(timezone.utc)
    utc_time = dt.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc)
    utc_timestamp = utc_time.timestamp()
    return utc_timestamp



# create start and end timestamps
_now = datetime.datetime.now()
str_start = str(utc_converter(_now))
_end = _now + timedelta(seconds=10)
str_end = str(utc_converter(_end))