Formatting "yesterday's" date in python

Question

I need to find "yesterday's" date in this format MMDDYY in Python.

So for instance, today's date would be represented like this: 111009

I can easily do this for today but I have trouble doing it automatically for "yesterday".

score 505 · Accepted Answer · edited May 11 '19 at 04:40

505

Use datetime.timedelta()

>>> from datetime import date, timedelta
>>> yesterday = date.today() - timedelta(days=1)
>>> yesterday.strftime('%m%d%y')
'110909'

edited May 11 '19 at 04:40

Boris Verkhovskiy

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answered Nov 11 '09 at 00:03

Jarret Hardie

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If you happen to be working with pandas, you can as well use: `print((pd.to_datetime('Today') - pd.Timedelta('1 days')).strftime('%m%d%y'))` – etna Oct 02 '17 at 07:39
If you happen to search for options, you can as well use Pendulum (https://pendulum.eustace.io): pendulum.now().subtract(days=-1).strftime('%m%d%y') – Andrei Drynov May 15 '19 at 11:22

score 177 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 11 '09 at 00:04

177

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

yesterday = datetime.now() - timedelta(days=1)
yesterday.strftime('%m%d%y')

answered Nov 11 '09 at 00:04

Nadia Alramli

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Stef · Answer 3 · 2009-11-11T00:46:15.093

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This should do what you want:

import datetime
yesterday = datetime.datetime.now() - datetime.timedelta(days = 1)
print yesterday.strftime("%m%d%y")

edited Nov 11 '09 at 00:46

answered Nov 11 '09 at 00:03

Stef

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Why do you care more about the date for people in UTC offset 0 than the date in the system's local timezone? – Jeffrey Harris Nov 11 '09 at 00:09
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I copied that from my code, in database usage you often care about UTC. Removed the UTC stuff. – Stef Nov 11 '09 at 00:46

score 11 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 18 '17 at 07:21

all answers are correct, but I want to mention that time delta accepts negative arguments.

>>> from datetime import date, timedelta
>>> yesterday = date.today() + timedelta(days=-1)
>>> print(yesterday.strftime('%m%d%y')) #for python2 remove parentheses

Arvid Bäärnhielm · Answer 5 · 2018-12-04T12:28:18.573

9

Could I just make this somewhat more international and format the date according to the international standard and not in the weird month-day-year, that is common in the US?

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

yesterday = datetime.now() - timedelta(days=1)
yesterday.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

edited Dec 04 '18 at 12:28

answered Dec 04 '18 at 12:08

Arvid Bäärnhielm

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Agree that we use a weird date format in the States, but the OP specifically requested that weird format--which in this case is `'%m%d%y'. – DaveL17 Mar 26 '19 at 12:31
@DaveL17, fair point. I'll leave the answer for all outside US who stumble upon this question. – Arvid Bäärnhielm Mar 29 '19 at 12:19

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:03

To expand on the answer given by Chris

if you want to store the date in a variable in a specific format, this is the shortest and most effective way as far as I know

>>> from datetime import date, timedelta                   
>>> yesterday = (date.today() - timedelta(days=1)).strftime('%m%d%y')
>>> yesterday
'020817'

If you want it as an integer (which can be useful)

>>> yesterday = int((date.today() - timedelta(days=1)).strftime('%m%d%y'))
>>> yesterday
20817

Formatting "yesterday's" date in python

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