Iterating through a range of dates in Python

Question

I have the following code to do this, but how can I do it better? Right now I think it\'s better than nested loops, but it starts to get Perl-one-linerish when you have a ge

Answer 1

Here's code for a general date range function, similar to Ber's answer, but more flexible:

def count_timedelta(delta, step, seconds_in_interval):
    """Helper function for iterate.  Finds the number of intervals in the timedelta."""
    return int(delta.total_seconds() / (seconds_in_interval * step))


def range_dt(start, end, step=1, interval='day'):
    """Iterate over datetimes or dates, similar to builtin range."""
    intervals = functools.partial(count_timedelta, (end - start), step)

    if interval == 'week':
        for i in range(intervals(3600 * 24 * 7)):
            yield start + datetime.timedelta(weeks=i) * step

    elif interval == 'day':
        for i in range(intervals(3600 * 24)):
            yield start + datetime.timedelta(days=i) * step

    elif interval == 'hour':
        for i in range(intervals(3600)):
            yield start + datetime.timedelta(hours=i) * step

    elif interval == 'minute':
        for i in range(intervals(60)):
            yield start + datetime.timedelta(minutes=i) * step

    elif interval == 'second':
        for i in range(intervals(1)):
            yield start + datetime.timedelta(seconds=i) * step

    elif interval == 'millisecond':
        for i in range(intervals(1 / 1000)):
            yield start + datetime.timedelta(milliseconds=i) * step

    elif interval == 'microsecond':
        for i in range(intervals(1e-6)):
            yield start + datetime.timedelta(microseconds=i) * step

    else:
        raise AttributeError("Interval must be 'week', 'day', 'hour' 'second', \
            'microsecond' or 'millisecond'.")