Comparing two time values in Python returns wrong value

Question

I need to compare two times in Python.

At first I get the current time:

current_time = time.strftime("%H:%M:%S")

I get another time value from list:

another_time =  datetime.strptime(some_list[2],'%H:%M:%S')

I want to get the difference between those two times in minutes.I've tried to do this:

time_now = datetime.strptime(current_time, '%H:%M:%S')
d1 = time.mktime(another_time.timetuple())
d2 = time.mktime(time_now.timetuple())
diff = (d2-d1) / 60

What I get is:

-1206.0333333

When I print out another_time I get:

1900-01-01 21:07:23

and current_time:

1900-01-01 01:01:21

So the difference should be 238 minutes.

Is the problem in the year (where does this year come anyway?)? Or what should I change in my code?

@Shahzad my list looks like: ['Last', 'ended:', '2015/01/06', '23:38:34', 'UTC'] So I use some_list[3] to get the time. — user3019389, Jan 06 '15 at 23:37
@elyase 1206 is 20 hours, but the difference should be ~4 hours(238 minutes). Another_time is actually 06.01.2015 21:07:23 and current_time is 07.01.2015 01:01:21 — user3019389, Jan 06 '15 at 23:42
Perhaps try a timedelta? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6749294/understanding-timedelta — dstromberg, Jan 06 '15 at 23:52

elyase · Answer 1 · 2015-01-07T00:12:11.733

0

I think this is what you want to do:

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.parser import parse

l = ['Last', 'ended:', '2015/01/06', '23:38:34', 'UTC']

another_time = parse(l[2] + ' ' + l[3]) # datetime(2015, 1, 6, 23, 38, 34)
current_time = datetime.now()           # datetime(2015, 1, 7,  1,  1, 21)

elapsed = current_time - another_time
elapsed.total_seconds() // 60  # 82 minutes

edited Jan 07 '15 at 00:12

answered Jan 06 '15 at 23:23

elyase

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Urban48 · Answer 2 · 2015-01-10T08:52:23.443

0

i suggest to convert to Epoch time then subtract

example:

import time
import datetime
import calendar

current_time = int(time.time())

another_time = calendar.timegm(datetime.datetime(2015,01,8,0,0).utctimetuple())


print(datetime.timedelta(seconds=another_time-current_time))

output:

1 day, 0:15:50

edited Jan 10 '15 at 08:52

answered Jan 06 '15 at 23:47

Urban48

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1
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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 06 '15 at 23:59

if you get a timedelta -- by subtracting two datetime.datetime object, for instance -- you can use the total_seconds() method, divide by 60, and cast as an integer.

from dateutil.parser import parse 
timeone = parse("10:00 a.m.") #<type 'datetime.datetime'>
timetwo = parse("12:40 p.m.") #<type 'datetime.datetime'>
td = timetwo - timeone # <type 'datetime.timedelta'>
delta_mins = int(td.total_seconds()/60) #outputs 160

Comparing two time values in Python returns wrong value

3 Answers3