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Python Dates and Times in Python (2014) Dates and Times strftime & strptime

Posted by Sean Manners
Sean Manners
14,816 Points

Datetime Vs Datetime.Datetime?

So I've gotten the answer down, and I believe I understand, to an extent anyway, why the answer is what it is.

What I'm still not comprehending though is why to use 'strftime', it only needs to be called attached to the argument in the function call, but to use 'strptime', we need to use datetime.datetime.strptime.

Usually I can piece together why somethings works but this one has me stumped right now. Any insight?

Many thanks in advance.

timestrings.py 
## Examples
# to_string(datetime_object) => "24 September 2012"
# from_string("09/24/12 18:30", "%m/%d/%y %H:%M") => datetime
import datetime

def to_string(datetime_object):
    return datetime_object.strftime('%d %B %Y')

def from_string(string_form, strf_format):
    return datetime.datetime.strptime(string_form, strf_format)

1 Answer

jacinator
jacinator
11,936 Points

If I'm correct, datetime is a module, whereas datetime.datetime is a class. I think that strftime is a method on this class. I am by no means certain about this. Dates in Python are horrendously confusing, especially if you are messing with time zones.

Sean Manners
Sean Manners
14,816 Points

Yeah, I went back to review the courses looking for a solid answer on this. I've even heard Kenneth slip up and say Datetime, rather than datetime.datetime, and he made sure to correct himself on it - But that being the case, the difference between why one is called differently than the other is never explicitly laid out.

Thank you though, it definitely helps to know I'm not just completely lost at this point in the courses.