Question

I am new to python.

def maintain_delta(new_vals, host, action):
    file_name = build_file_name(host, action)
    err, data = read_values(file_name)
    old_vals = data.split(';')
    new_vals = [str(int(time.time()))] + new_vals
    delta = None
    try:
        err, delta= calc_delta(old_vals, new_vals)
    except:
        err = 2
    write_res = write_values(file_name, ";".join(str(x) for x in new_vals))
    return err + write_res, delta

source github link:

From what I understand, it reads data from a file and adds time.time() function to get the new val. What does time.time() do? Does this function generate a file name?

Answer 1

From the Python docs

time.time()

Return the time in seconds since the epoch as a floating point number.
Note that even though the time is always returned as a floating point
number, not all systems provide time with a better precision than 1
second. While this function normally returns non-decreasing values, it
can return a lower value than a previous call if the system clock has
been set back between the two calls.

It’s worth bookmarking the docs, I refer to them many times a day. You’ll be able to answer these types of questions easily.

As @redrah reminds us in a helpful comment below, accessing help() from inside the Python shell also offers some useful immediate on-line information about various functions.