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Trying to subtract two dates and get a result in hours(greater than 24 hours time period) in python

This is what I have tried:

    currentdate = datetime.now()
    # gets the date from the website
    lastcrawl = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="last-15336"]/h4').text
    # convert string into time format
    formatlastcrawl = datetime.strptime(lastcrawl, '%b %d %H:%M')
    # converts into the time format - April 28, 11:24
    newformatlastcrawl = formatlastcrawl.strftime('%b %d %H:%M')
    print newformatlastcrawl
    # substracts 24 hours of the current date(because the website crawl happens every 24 hours) + 2 hours(to give enough time to finish the crawl)
    substractdate = (currentdate - timedelta(hours=26)).strftime("%b %d %H:%M")
    print substractdate
    # changes the format of the current date. For example - Nov 12
    formatcurrentdate = currentdate.strftime("%b %d %H:%M")
    print formatcurrentdate

    a = (substractdate - newformatlastcrawl)
    print a

When I try to subtract it I get this error:

a = (substractdate - newformatlastcrawl).strptime("%b %d %H:%M") TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for -: 'str' and 'str'

I would like to get the answer in hours only. Also, time values can be greater than 24 hours

user5653362
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  • related to the title: [Find if 24 hrs have passed between datetimes - Python](http://stackoverflow.com/q/26313520/4279) – jfs Apr 30 '16 at 09:49

1 Answers1

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This program prints the difference between two times in hours.

from datetime import datetime

now = datetime.now()

# Problem: no year specified!
b = datetime.strptime('Apr 24 11:24', '%b %d %H:%M')

# Fix: Use the current year
b = b.replace(year=now.year)

# Goal: print number of hours between the two dates
diff_in_hours = (now - b).total_seconds() / 3600
print '{} - {} = {} hours'.format(now, b, diff_in_hours)
Robᵩ
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  • if the utc offset is not fixed (e.g., if the local time zone observes DST) then using naive datetime objects such as returned by `datetime.now()` may lead to a wrong time difference. – jfs Apr 30 '16 at 09:49