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

Holden Glass
Holden Glass
6,077 Points

Not sure how it wants me to return the data

I have played around with this and I don't know how it wants me to output the data. In the example it just has a single datetime and I don't know how to get it like that. I am sure as soon as someone posts an answer for this question I'll get it but until then, I'm kinda stuck.

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(number, string):
    if string == 'years':
        the_days = 365 * number
        return datetime.datetime(starter + datetime.timedelta(days=the_days))
    elif string == 'days':
        return datetime.datetime(starter + datetime.timedelta(days=number))
    elif string == 'hours':
        return datetime.datetime(starter + datetime.timedelta(hours=number))
    elif string == 'minutes':
        return datetime.datetime(starter + datetime.timedelta(minutes=number))

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,236 Points

You're doing more work than you should.

Remember, if you already have a datetime (like starter), and you add a timedelta to it, the result is also a datetime. You can return that directly.

Holden Glass
Holden Glass
6,077 Points

I tried to do that to. I would just take away the datetime.datetime at the beginning right?

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,236 Points

Yes, and then you can remove the parentheses around the expression.