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Python Dates and Times in Python (2014) Let's Build a Timed Quiz App Harder Time Machine

How do I make the string into "not a string", so that it can be used in the timedelta function?

?

time_machine.py
import datetime

starter = datetime.datetime(2015, 10, 21, 16, 29)

# Remember, you can't set "years" on a timedelta!
# Consider a year to be 365 days.

## Example
# time_machine(5, "minutes") => datetime(2015, 10, 21, 16, 34)

def time_machine(int1, string1):
    if string1 == 'years':
        string2 = 'days'
        int2 = int1 * 365
        return starter + datetime.timedelta(string2 = int2)
    return starter + datetime.timedelta(string1 = int1)

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,441 Points

Hey Frederik Madsen, a great question. Many object types include methods to help convert a string into that type of object.

For a datetime object the method is called strptime. I think of this as “STRing Produce dateTIME” method. It takes the source string and a format template as arguments. The template is used to extract the data from the string. The data is then used as arguments to create a new datetime object.

The opposite is also true. There is another method to create a string from a datetime object called called strftime. I think of this as “STRing From dateTIME” method

Post back if you need more help. Good luck!!!