Convert datetime since a given date to minutes [duplicate]

Answer 1

>>> import datetime
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> then  = datetime.datetime(year=2012, month=1, day=1)
>>> delta=now-then

This is a timedelta object representing an interval of time.

>>> print delta
240 days, 11:05:25.507000

To count the minutes during that interval, use:

>>> print delta.total_seconds() / 60
346265.42511666665

Answer 2

By substracting datetimes, you can have a timedelta. This timedelta can be divided itself to give you what you want :

(datetime.datetime.now() - datetime.datetime(2012, 1, 1)) // datetime.timedelta(minutes=1)

(this code is only valid with python3, and that's why everybody should switch to python3 ;-) )

Answer 3

If you want the minutes of the delta between two dates, you can make a datetime.timedelta object by subtracting the two dates (see here), and then retrieve the minutes as shown in this question:

Convert a timedelta to days, hours and minutes

Answer 4

Subtracting two datetime.datetime objects gives you a timedelta object, which has a .total_seconds() method (added in Python 2.7). Divide this by 60 and cast to int() to get minutes since your reference date:

import datetime

january1st = datetime.datetime(2012, 01, 01)
timesince = datetime.datetime.now() - january1st
minutessince = int(timesince.total_seconds() / 60)

or in a python shell:

>>> import datetime
>>> january1st = datetime.datetime(2012, 01, 01)
>>> timesince = datetime.datetime.now() - january1st
>>> minutessince = int(timesince.total_seconds() / 60)
>>> minutessince
346208

For python 2.6 and earlier, you'll have to use the .days and .seconds attributes to calculate the minutes:

minutessince = timesince.days * 1440 + timesince.seconds // 60

which gives you an integer as well.