How would I compute exactly 30 days into the past with Python (down to the minute)?

Question

In Python, I'm attempting to retrieve the date/time that is exactly 30 days (30*24hrs) into the past. At present, I'm simply doing:

>>> import datetime
>>> start_date = datetime.date.today() + datetime.timedelta(-30)

Which returns a datetime object, but with no time data:

>>> start_date.year
2009
>>> start_date.hour
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'datetime.date' object has no attribute 'hour'

Solution

You want to use a datetime object instead of just a date object:

start_date = datetime.datetime.now() - datetime.timedelta(30)

date just stores a date and time just a time. datetime is a date with a time.

Comments

[radtek]

Works same way, but I like to look at it this way datetime.datetime.now() - datetime.timedelta(days=30)

[therealak12]

Because explicit is better than implicit, I do prefer this.

[claudius]

Also works for me: datetime.datetime.today() - datetime.timedelta(days=30)