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Python Dates and Times in Python (2014) Let's Build a Timed Quiz App Simple Time Machine

Posted by Eric Nachtsheim
Eric Nachtsheim
2,006 Points

I don't understand the answer.

So, I got the answer to this question from another Help thread. What I don't understand is how I was supposed to reach it. It said to take an integer and return a datetime. Where's all this other stuff come from?

I feel like I'm supposed to know this, but somehow I've really been struggling with datetimes as a concept.

time_machine.py 
import datetime

starter = datetime.datetime(2015, 10, 21, 16, 29)
def delorean(before_start):
    print(starter)
    jumped = starter + datetime.timedelta(hours=before_start) # + not -
    print(jumped) 
    return jumped


jumped_started = delorean(4)
print(jumped_started)

2 Answers

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,423 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,423 Points

Hey Eric Nachtsheim, using datetime.timedelta was discussed in the video 3 of the previous section: dates-and-times-in-python-> Dates and Times-> https://teamtreehouse.com/library/time-deltas look around time 0:30.

It can be helpful to keep notes or a journal to help recall where material was taught. I found this reference by going back to the course outline and searching for timedeltas.

I often use Google: “python docs <topic>”, which led me to the timedelta section.

Post back if you need more help. Good luck!!!

Andy Hughes
Andy Hughes
8,478 Points
Andy Hughes
Andy Hughes
8,478 Points

For anyone finding this difficult. Me too, but then I went back to the video Kenneth did on timedelta and bam, it was right there. It's tough to remember it all and I hate having to go back through videos. But it does work.

So in this challenge, we're being asked to move the 'starter' time forward by x number of hours. So to begin with, we need to create a timedelta that is focused on (hours = however many hours we want to advance) and capture this in a variable. (This is in the video).

Once we have our timedelta, we can then create a new variable to capture the result of adding the 'starter' variable to the variable where we stored our 'timedelta'.

Then it should hopefully be a case of returning that resulting variable and printing it.