Alternatives to Python datetime and dateutil

Bryan WeberMay 4, 2020About 3 min

Alternatives to Python datetime and dateutil 관련

Using Python datetime to Work With Dates and Times

Have you ever wondered about working with dates and times in Python? In this tutorial, you'll learn all about the built-in Python datetime library. You'll also learn about how to manage time zones and daylight saving time, and how to do accurate arithmetic on dates and times.

Using Python datetime to Work With Dates and Times

Python datetime and dateutil are a powerful combination of libraries when you’re working with dates and times. dateutil is even recommended in the Python documentation. However, there are many other libraries that you can use to work with dates and times in Python. Some of these rely on datetime and dateutil, while others are completely independent replacements:

pytz** provides time zone information similar to dateutil. It uses a somewhat different interface than the standard datetime.tzinfo, so be aware of the potential problems if you decide to use it.
Arrow provides a drop-in replacement for datetime. It’s inspired by moment.js, so if you’re coming from web development, then this might be a more familiar interface.
Pendulum provides another drop-in replacement for datetime. It includes a time zone interface and an improved timedelta implementation.
timofurrer/maya provides a similar interface as datetime. It relies on Pendulum for parts of the parsing library.
dateparser provides an interface to generate datetime instances from human-readable text. It’s flexible and supports many languages.

In addition, if you work heavily with NumPy, Pandas, or other data science packages, then there are a few options that might be useful to you:

NumPy provides a similar API to the built-in Python datetime library, but the NumPy version can be used in arrays.
Pandas provides support for time-series data in DataFrames, usually sequential values of time-based events, by using the NumPy datetime module.
cftime provides support for calendars other than the proleptic Gregorian calendar as well as other time units conforming to the Climate and Forecasting (CF) conventions. It’s used by the xarray package to provide time-series support.