Question

Hi I am writing a program that is dependent on time and observing some curious behavior with datetime objects I cannot quite figure out. The code I am working with / am having trouble with is…

now = datetime.now()
time_changed_state = some datettime object previously initialized
time_delay = some integer
time_arrival = time_changed_state + timedelta(minutes=time_delay)

if now < time_arrival:
   do something
elif now >= time_arrival:
   do something different

I have been working with test cases in order ot make sure the code behaves the way I would like it to but it doesn’t seem to.

I discovered the odd behavior when the time_delay = 0, and I know for a fact that now would be >= time_arrival since time_changed_state was a datetime object initilizated before this function call and now was initialized within the function. However, the “do something” code is being executed rather than the “do something different code”.

Thanks so much!

Answer 1

I’ve edited your code, is this what you are expecting?

from datetime import datetime
from datetime import timedelta

now = datetime.now()
time_changed_state = now - timedelta(hours=2)
time_delay = 0
time_arrival = time_changed_state + timedelta(minutes=time_delay)

if now < time_arrival:
   print 'something'
elif now >= time_arrival:
   print 'something different'