Python Pendulum Module

By / August 6, 2022

Python’s pendulum module enables date/time conversions and manipulations.

It helps the user to work easily with date/time formats.

This module enables and provides all the functionalities provided by the pytz module.

Installation of pendulum module through the command-line:

Pendulum Module Installation
Pendulum Module Installation

Importing pendulum module:

import pendulum

Display the current time

The now() method is used to display the current date-time of a particular zone.

Example:

import pendulum
time = pendulum.now()  
print(time)

Output:

2020-01-03T10:46:59.049040+05:30

The timezone objects along with the datetime.now() function is used to avail the current timestamp of different time-zones.

Example:

from datetime import datetime
import pendulum

utc_time = pendulum.timezone('UTC')
pst_time = pendulum.timezone('America/Los_Angeles')
ist_time = pendulum.timezone('Asia/Calcutta')


print('Date Time in UTC =', datetime.now(utc_time))
print('Date Time in PST =', datetime.now(pst_time))
print('Date Time in IST =', datetime.now(ist_time))

Output:

Output Timezone
Output-Timezone

Replacing the datetime module by pendulum module

import pendulum

utc = pendulum.now('UTC')

print('Date Time in UTC =', utc)

Output:

Date Time in UTC = 2020-01-03T05:28:43.853647+00:00

Conversion of time-zones

import pendulum
utc = pendulum.now('UTC')
ist = utc.in_timezone('Asia/Calcutta')

print('Date Time in IST =', ist)

Output:

Date Time in IST = 2020-01-03T11:05:20.756743+05:30

Date-time manipulations

The pendulum module provides add() and subtract() functions to manipulate the date and times in terms of year/month/hour and hour/minute/second.

import pendulum

d_t = pendulum.datetime(2020, 2, 29)
d_t.to_datetime_string()
print(d_t)

dt_add = d_t.add(years=5)
print(dt_add)
dt_add = d_t.add(months=5)
print(dt_add)
dt_add = d_t.add(days=2)
print(dt_add)
dt_add = d_t.add(weeks=5)
print(dt_add)
dt_add = d_t.add(hours=5)
print(dt_add)
dt_add = d_t.add(minutes=5)
print(dt_add)
dt_add = d_t.add(seconds=5)
print(dt_add)

dt_sub = d_t.subtract(years=1)
print(dt_sub)
dt_sub = d_t.subtract(months=5)
print(dt_sub)
dt_sub = d_t.subtract(days=2)
print(dt_sub)
dt_sub = d_t.subtract(weeks=5)
print(dt_sub)
dt_sub = d_t.subtract(hours=5)
print(dt_sub)
dt_sub = d_t.subtract(minutes=5)
print(dt_sub)
dt_sub = d_t.subtract(seconds=5)
print(dt_sub)

Output:

Output Datetime Manipulations
Output-Datetime Manipulations

delta() function

The delta() function provides the difference between the two timestamps.

import pendulum

d_t1 = pendulum.datetime(2020, 2, 20)
d_t1.to_datetime_string()
print(d_t1)
d_t2 = pendulum.datetime(2020, 2, 10)
d_t2.to_datetime_string()
print(d_t2)

delta = d_t1 - d_t2

print(delta.start)  
print(delta.end)   

print(delta.in_days())      # 10
print(delta.in_hours())     # 240

Output:

Output Delta Function
Output Delta Function

Formatting date-time

The strftime() function enables the user to format the date-time in our own format.

import pendulum

utc = pendulum.now('UTC')

print(utc .to_iso8601_string())
print(utc .to_formatted_date_string())
print(utc .to_w3c_string())
print(utc .to_date_string())

# supports strftime() too
print(utc .strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z%z'))

Output:

2020-01-03T07:17:28.650601Z
Jan 03, 2020
2020-01-03T07:17:28+00:00
2020-01-03
2020-01-03 07:17:28 UTC+0000

Comparison of Dates

Simple comparison of time-zones is offered by the pendulum module.

import pendulum

first = pendulum.datetime(2012, 9, 5, 23, 26, 11, 0, tz='America/Toronto')
second = pendulum.datetime(2019, 9, 5, 20, 26, 11, 0, tz='America/Vancouver')

first.to_datetime_string()

print(first.timezone_name)

second.to_datetime_string()

print(second.timezone_name)

print(first == second)

print(first != second)

Output:

America/Toronto
America/Vancouver
False
True

Conclusion

Thus, in this article, we have understood the functionalities offered by the pendulum module.

References