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Python Dates and Times in Python (2014) Dates and Times Timedelta Minute

Posted by underfish
underfish
3,226 Points

minutes challenge

What am I doing wrong here?

import datetime


def minutes(dt1, dt2):
    return round(dt2.minute - dt1.minute)

It's expecting 7 but my code is returning 53 or something.

When I try this out locally, it seems to work as expected:

import datetime


def minutes(dt1, dt2):
    return round(dt2.minute - dt1.minute)

dt1 = datetime.datetime.now()
dt2 = dt1 + datetime.timedelta(minutes=5)

print(minutes(dt1, dt2))

This prints 5 and there are 5 minutes between the two datetimes I fed the function.

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,441 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,441 Points

You are not taking into account a difference in hours or days. 5:12 - 4:07 would be 65 not 5.

A better approach is to subtract the two datetime objects directly: 

diff = dt2 - dt1

This produces a timedelta object. You can then use the diff.total_seconds() method to get the minutes by dividing by 60 (and rounding of course).

underfish
underfish
3,226 Points

I see. Thanks for the help.