Python Time Module

We can always use Python's built-in time module whenever dealing with time-related tasks. There are several ways to represent time in code, including numbers, strings, and objects, thanks to this built-in module. It also has additional features like the ability to get the current time, wait until the code executes, pause programme execution, and measure the code's effectiveness.

We will go in-depth on how to work with dates and times, as well as how to represent time with floats, tuples, and struct_time. We will also learn how to convert between various time representations and comprehend suspend thread execution.

Python's time module is a very practical tool for manipulating functions and objects that deal with time. Therefore, we must first import the module in order to begin using the time module in Python.

Python's time module offers functions for dealing with time-related tasks.

Among the time-related tasks are,reading the current time, formatting the time, dozing off for a predetermined period of time, and so forth.

Adding the time module

Since it is a part of Python's standard utility module, there is no need to install the time module separately.

What is an epoch?

The epoch, which varies depending on the platform, is the moment when time begins. The epoch is January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 (UTC) on Windows and most Unix systems, and leap seconds are not included in the calculation of the number of seconds that have passed since the epoch. We can use time to find out what the epoch is on a particular platform.gmtime(0).

Python Time in Floating Number(Seconds)

The first value returned by the time.time() function is the duration in seconds since the epoch. This function returns a floating data type for the time in order to handle fractional seconds.

Code

Output:

1659877305.6220002

On your machine, the reference point used to calculate the epoch might differ significantly. Therefore might receive a different output.

To do this, pass the time.ctime() function the number of seconds returned by the time() function.

Time in seconds can be entered into the time.ctime() function of the time module, which will then calculate time up to those seconds and return a 24-character time string object. If there is no disagreement, time is calculated up until the current moment.

Code

Output:

Current time:  Wed June 7 08:21:45 2023

The Epoch

In the previous section, we learned that we could obtain datetime in Python as a floating point object that represents the amount of time since the beginning of an epoch.

The calculation of future time is based on a specific point in time. A system of chronological notation that bases itself on a specific date.

It's important to note that when using Python datetime, you must keep in mind that you are thinking about a time period that is indicated by a reference point. In computing, this point in time is referred to as the epoch.

The epoch acts as the starting point for measuring the passage of time as a result.

For example, we can represent the epoch as occurring at midnight on April 2, 2022, IST. If we find time at midnight on April 3, 2022, 86400 seconds must have passed since the epoch.

One minute has 60 seconds, an hour has 60 minutes, and a day has 24 hours. The seconds between two times can therefore be manually calculated.

Code

Output:

86400

It's important to keep in mind that we can still depict time before the epoch, and the outcome in this case will be unfavourable.

We could represent midnight on April 1, 2022, IST as -86400 seconds using an epoch of April 2, 2022.

On January 1, 1970, UTC was the most widely used epoch, though it was not the only one. Various epochs are occasionally used by different filesystems, operating systems, and APIs.

Its epoch is defined by UNIX systems as January 1, 1970. On the other hand, the Win32 API specifies January 1, 1601, as the date of its epoch.

We can use the time to find the epoch on your system.gmtime() is a time module function.

Code

Output:

time.struct_time(tm_year=1970, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=1, tm_isdst=0)
1970-01-01 00:00:00