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Python

Elizabeth McInerney
Elizabeth McInerney
3,175 Points
Posted by Elizabeth McInerney
Elizabeth McInerney
3,175 Points

time_worked

In the video Manipulating Time Already, in Dates and Times, I don't understand how he can use a dir on time_worked when time_worked is just a variable set to an equation (datetime.datetime.now() - treehouse_start).

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,167 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,167 Points

Something to remember: Everything in Python is an object. When assigning a variable it is going to be some object based upon the objects used in the equation. There is a bit of magic involved with datetime. When two datetime objects are added or subtracted the result is a timedelta object. You can use timedelta objects to directly add and subtract to other datetimeand get a datetime object result.

datatime.datetime.now() yields a datetime object

  • If treehouse_start is a datetime object, time_worked will be a timedelta object.
  • If treehouse_start is a timedelta object, time_worked will be a datetime object.

So the dir() is returning the attributes of the datetime object.