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Start your free trialKenneth Bagwell Jr
3,698 Pointstime delta coversion
how do I covert this time to a time delta
import datetime
def time_machine(num, "days"):
time =
starter = datetime.datetime(2015, 10, 21, 16, 29)
# Remember, you can't set "years" on a timedelta!
# Consider a year to be 365 days.
## Example
# time_machine(5, "minutes") => datetime(2015, 10, 21, 16, 34)
2 Answers
Asher Orr
Python Development Techdegree Graduate 9,408 PointsHi Kenneth!
The function, time_machine, should take an integer and a string of "minutes", "hours", "days", or "years". First:
def time_machine(num, "days"):
In your code above, the second parameter is literally the string "days". You want the parameter to represent any string that's passed into it- days, minutes, hours, or years. You should change that parameter to something generic, like:
def time_machine(num, time_unit):
Now, let's move on to the body of your function.
Your parameters are a number and a time unit that represent a timedelta (a gap in time.) When you click "Check Work," the Treehouse checker will pass in arguments like this:
def time_machine(5, "hours")
If you watch Kenneth's lesson on timedeltas, you'll see that you can add them to other datetime objects to get a new time.
For example:
now = datetime.datetime.now()
# >> now
datetime.datetime(2022, 7, 12, 12, 10, 31, 459833)
# here are what those numbers represent: year, month, day, hour, minute, second, microsecond.
new_object = now + datetime.timedelta(days=3)
# >> new_object
datetime.datetime(2022, 7, 15, 12, 10, 31, 459833)
#see the difference?
#we added 3 days to a datetime object (now)
#that's why the 12 (the third number in the parentheses, representing the day) became a 15.
The challenge asks to return a datetime object that is the timedelta's duration from the starter datetime.
Here's a simpler way to think about it:
Step 1: Convert your parameters to a datetime object that's a timedelta.
- Hint: you may need to use multiple if statements, since "minutes", "hours", "days", or "years" could be passed in for the time_unit parameter.
Step 2: Make a variable that stores an operation where you add that datetime object to the variable "starter".
- That's how you get the timedelta's duration from the starter datetime.
Step 3: Return that variable
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions!
Steven Parker
231,126 PointsWhen you define a function, the parameter names should not have quotes around them (but when the function is called, it's OK for the argument to be a quoted literal string).
To make a timedelta using a num of units you would do something like mydelta = datetime.timedelta(units=num)
. But remember that timedelta doesn't recognise "years" for units, so you'll need to handle that specially.