Comparing a time delta in python

Question

I have a variable which is <type 'datetime.timedelta'> and I would like to compare it against certain values.

Lets say d produces this datetime.timedelta value 0:00:01.782000

I would like to compare it like this:

#if d is greater than 1 minute 
if d>1:00:
  print "elapsed time is greater than 1 minute"

I have tried converting datetime.timedelta.strptime() but that does seem to work. Is there an easier way to compare this value?

Solution 1

You'll have to create a new timedelta with the specified amount of time:

d > timedelta(minutes=1)

Or this slightly more complete script will help elaborate:

import datetime
from time import sleep

start = datetime.datetime.now()
sleep(3)
stop = datetime.datetime.now()

elapsed = stop - start

if elapsed > datetime.timedelta(minutes=1):
    print "Slept for > 1 minute"

if elapsed > datetime.timedelta(seconds=1):
    print "Slept for > 1 second"

Output:

Slept for > 1 second

Solution 2

You just need to create timedelta object from scratch, comparison after that is trivial:

>>> a = datetime.timedelta(minutes=1)
>>> b = datetime.timedelta(minutes=1, seconds=1)
>>> a < b
True
>>> a > b
False

Solution 3

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that you could also use the following:

Instead of

if elapsed > datetime.timedelta(seconds=1):

You could say

if elapsed.seconds > 1:

Solution 4

if d.total_seconds() > 60:
  print("elapsed time is greater than 1 minute")

but it requires python 2.7+

View more solutions

Comments

[Thomas Wouters]

Note that 0:00:01.78200 is what a timedelta looks like when printed, but that's not a particularly useful format when debugging. Use repr() to show more accurate information. That way you might have guessed at the solution, as repr(d) would have shown datetime.timedelta(0, 1, 782000)

[Fips]

Note if you're using Pandas there exists pandas.Timedelta with capital T...