Question

I’m converting a PHP program to Python. Apparently MySQLdb returns MySQL time fields as time deltas offset from midnight. So a database field containing a literal “08:00:00” (8:00 AM) is returned as 28,800 seconds. I have found some other posts confirming this behavior, but can’t find code samples that help me get what I need.

I need to read a logged event’s date and time, and determine how much time has passed:

event_date = mysql_result[0] # datetime object
event_time = mysql_result[1] # timedelta object

now = datetime.now()         # datetime object
elapsed_minutes = ???        # need integer

Iv’e read through the lengthy documentation for datetime on docs.python.org, but have been unsuccessful taking the datetime and timedelta values, comparing to the current time, and producing the number of elapsed minutes (or seconds) as an integer.

I’m not saying the answer isn’t there or in another stack overflow post–just that I have been completely unsuccessful finding and implementing it myself. Can someone please lend a hand?

Thanks.

Answer 1

In [82]: import datetime as dt
In [85]: now = dt.datetime.now()

In [129]: event_date = dt.date(2012,10,22)    
In [155]: event_date = dt.datetime(event_date.year, event_date.month, event_date.day)

In [130]: event_time = dt.timedelta(seconds = 28800)    
In [131]: event = event_date + event_time  

In [132]: elapsed = now - event
Out[132]: datetime.timedelta(0, 35008, 781476)    
In [133]: elapsed.total_seconds()
Out[133]: 35008.781476    
In [134]: elapsed.total_seconds() // 60
Out[134]: 583.0

Or, in Python2.6, which does not have the total_seconds method:

In [149]: (elapsed.days*24*60*60+elapsed.seconds+elapsed.microseconds/1e6)//60
Out[149]: 583.0