Question

I have given date strings like these:

Mon Jun 28 10:51:07 2010
Fri Jun 18 10:18:43 2010
Wed Dec 15 09:18:43 2010

What is a handy python way to calculate the difference in days? Assuming the time zone is the same.

The strings were returned by linux commands.

Edit: Thank you, so many good answers

Answer 1

#!/usr/bin/env python

import datetime

def hrdd(d1, d2):
    """
    Human-readable date difference.
    """
    _d1 = datetime.datetime.strptime(d1, "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y")
    _d2 = datetime.datetime.strptime(d2, "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y")
    diff = _d2 - _d1
    return diff.days # <-- alternatively: diff.seconds 

if __name__ == '__main__':
    d1 = "Mon Jun 28 10:51:07 2010"
    d2 = "Fri Jun 18 10:18:43 2010"
    d3 = "Wed Dec 15 09:18:43 2010"

    print hrdd(d1, d2)
    # ==> -11
    print hrdd(d2, d1)
    # ==> 10
    print hrdd(d1, d3)
    # ==> 169
    # ...