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Iteration through a list

I'm very new to Python hence this question.
I have a list that represents dates i.e. Mondays in March and beginning of April
[2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 6]
The list, 'color_sack' is created from a scrape of our local council website.
Im using
next_rubbish_day = next(x for x in color_sack if x > todays_date.day)
todays_date.day returns just the number representing the day i.e. 30
This has worked well all month until today 30th when it now displays a error
next_rubbish_day = next(x for x in color_sack if x > todays_date.day)
StopIteration
Is it possible to step through the list a better way so as next_rubbish_day would populate the 6 after the 30 from the list above.
I can see why its not working but can't work out a better way.
When April starts the list will be updated with the new dates for Mondays in April through to the beginning of May

Consider, if your current month is march and corresponding list of dates is [2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 6] and today's date is 30, basically what we are doing is :
Checking if there is any date in color_sack that is greater than
today's date if it is then we yield that date. In our case no date in the list is greater than 30.
If the 1st condition fails we now find out the index of maximum date in the color_sack, in our case the max date is 30 and its index is 4, now we found out if there is a idx greater than the index of maximum date in the list, if it is then we return that date.
This algorithm will comply with any dates in the current month eg March. As soon as the new month starts eg. "April starts the list will be updated with the new dates for Mondays in April through to the beginning of May".
So this algorithm will always comply.
Try this:
def next_rubbish_day(color_sack, todays_date):
for idx, day in enumerate(color_sack):
if day > todays_date or idx > color_sack.index(max(color_sack)):
yield day
print(next(next_rubbish_day(color_sack, 6)))
print(next(next_rubbish_day(color_sack, 10)))
print(next(next_rubbish_day(color_sack, 21)))
print(next(next_rubbish_day(color_sack, 30)))
print(next(next_rubbish_day(color_sack, 31)))
OUTPUT:
9
16
23
6
6

next takes an optional default that is returned when the iterable is empty. If color_sack consistently has the first-of-next-month day in the last position, return it as a default:
next_rubbish_day = next(
(x for x in color_sack[:-1] if x > todays_date.day),
color_sack[-1],
)
Note that this scheme will not tell you whether you rolled over. It will only tell you the next date is 6th, not 6th of April versus 6th of March.
To avoid the magic indices, consider splitting your list explicitly and giving proper names to each part.
*this_month, fallback_day = color_sack
next_rubbish_day = next(
(day for day in this_month if day > todays_date.day),
fallback_day,
)
If you need to be month-aware, handle the StopIteration explicitly:
try:
day = next(x for x in color_sack[:-1] if x > todays_date.day)
except StopIteration:
day = color_sack[-1]
month = 'next'
else:
month = 'this'
print(f'Next date is {day} of {month} month')

Thank you for the help, Ive used MisterMiyagi snippet as that seems to work at the moment.
Here is the full code:
import datetime
import requests
import calendar
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from datetime import date
def ord(n): # returns st, nd, rd and th
return str(n) + (
"th" if 4 <= n % 100 <= 20 else {
1: "st", 2: "nd", 3: "rd"}.get(n % 10, "th")
)
# Scrapes rubbish collection dates
URL = "https://apps.castlepoint.gov.uk/cpapps/index.cfm?roadID=2767&fa=wastecalendar.displayDetails"
raw_html = requests.get(URL)
data = BeautifulSoup(raw_html.text, "html.parser")
pink = data.find_all('td', class_='pink', limit=3)
black = data.find_all('td', class_='normal', limit=3)
month = data.find('div', class_='calMonthCurrent')
# converts .text and strip [] to get month name
month = str((month.text).strip('[]'))
todays_date = datetime.date.today()
print()
# creats sack lists
pink_sack = []
for div in pink:
n = div.text
pink_sack.append(n)
pink_sack = list(map(int, pink_sack))
print(f"Pink list {pink_sack}")
black_sack = []
for div in black:
n = div.text
black_sack.append(n)
black_sack = list(map(int, black_sack))
print(f"Black list {black_sack}")
# creats pink/black list
color_sack = []
color_sack = [None]*(len(pink_sack)+len(black_sack))
color_sack[::2] = pink_sack
color_sack[1::2] = black_sack
print(f"Combined list {color_sack}")
print()
print()
# checks today for rubbish
if todays_date.day in color_sack:
print(f"Today {(ord(todays_date.day))}", end=" ")
if todays_date.day in pink_sack:
print("is pink")
elif todays_date.day in black_sack:
print("is black")
# Looks for the next rubbish day
next_rubbish_day = next(
(x for x in color_sack[:-1] if x > todays_date.day),
color_sack[-1],
)
# gets day number
day = calendar.weekday(
(todays_date.year), (todays_date.month), (next_rubbish_day))
# print(next_rubbish_day)
print(f"Next rubbish day is {(calendar.day_name[day])} the {(ord(next_rubbish_day))}" +
(" and is Pink" if next_rubbish_day in pink_sack else " and is Black"))
print()
Theres probable so many more efficient ways of doing this, so Im open to suggestions and always learning.

Get the week numbers between two dates with python

I'd like to find the most pythonic way to output a list of the week numbers between two dates.
For example:
input
start = datetime.date(2011, 12, 25)
end = datetime.date(2012, 1, 21)
output
find_weeks(start, end)
>> [201152, 201201, 201202, 201203]
I've been struggling using the datetime library with little success

Something in the lines of (update: removed less-readable option)
import datetime
def find_weeks(start,end):
l = []
for i in range((end-start).days + 1):
d = (start+datetime.timedelta(days=i)).isocalendar()[:2] # e.g. (2011, 52)
yearweek = '{}{:02}'.format(*d) # e.g. "201152"
l.append(yearweek)
return sorted(set(l))
start = datetime.date(2011, 12, 25)
end = datetime.date(2012, 1, 21)
print(find_weeks(start,end)[1:]) # [1:] to exclude first week.
Returns
['201152', '201201', '201202', '201203']
To include the first week (201151) simply remove [1:] after function call

.isocalendar() is your friend here - it returns a tuple of (year, week of year, day of week). We use that to reset the start date to the start of th eweek, and then add on a week each time until we pass the end date:
import datetime
def find_weeks(start_date, end_date):
subtract_days = start_date.isocalendar()[2] - 1
current_date = start_date + datetime.timedelta(days=7-subtract_days)
weeks_between = []
while current_date <= end_date:
weeks_between.append(
'{}{:02d}'.format(*current_date.isocalendar()[:2])
)
current_date += datetime.timedelta(days=7)
return weeks_between
start = datetime.date(2011, 12, 25)
end = datetime.date(2012, 1, 21)
print(find_weeks(start, end))
This prints
['201152', '201201', '201202', '201203']

Using Pandas
import pandas as pd
dates=pd.date_range(start=start,end=end,freq='W')
date_index=dates.year.astype(str)+dates.weekofyear.astype(str).str.zfill(2)
date_index.tolist()

I suggest you the following easy-to-read solution:
import datetime
start = datetime.date(2011, 12, 25)
end = datetime.date(2012, 1, 21)
def find_weeks(start, end):
l = []
while (start.isocalendar()[1] != end.isocalendar()[1]) or (start.year != end.year):
l.append(start.isocalendar()[1] + 100*start.year)
start += datetime.timedelta(7)
l.append(start.isocalendar()[1] + 100*start.year)
return (l[1:])
print(find_weeks(start, end))
>> [201252, 201201, 201202, 201203]

I prefer the arrow style solution here (might need pip install arrow):
import arrow
start = arrow.get('2011-12-25')
end = arrow.get('2012-01-21')
weeks = list(arrow.Arrow.span_range('week', start, end))
result looks like this:
>> from pprint import pprint
>> pprint(weeks[1:])
[(<Arrow [2011-12-19T00:00:00+00:00]>,
<Arrow [2011-12-25T23:59:59.999999+00:00]>),
(<Arrow [2011-12-26T00:00:00+00:00]>,
<Arrow [2012-01-01T23:59:59.999999+00:00]>),
(<Arrow [2012-01-02T00:00:00+00:00]>,
<Arrow [2012-01-08T23:59:59.999999+00:00]>),
(<Arrow [2012-01-09T00:00:00+00:00]>,
<Arrow [2012-01-15T23:59:59.999999+00:00]>),
(<Arrow [2012-01-16T00:00:00+00:00]>,
<Arrow [2012-01-22T23:59:59.999999+00:00]>)]
from there you can change the output to match the year and week number.

How to find number of Mondays or any other weekday between two dates in Python?

I have two dates between which I need to find out how many Mon- Fri are coming(except for Sta, Sun), everyday should be counted
Currently I am thinking this:
import calendar
import datetime
start_date = datetime.datetime.strptime("01/01/2017",'%d/%m/%Y')
end_date = datetime.datetime.strptime("31/01/2017",'%d/%m/%Y')
week_arr = [0] * 7
calendar.day_name[start_date.weekday()] ## will give me name of day
"""
As I receive Monday I will increment week_arr[0] by 1, Tuesday
week_arr[1]+= 1,
"""
I am not getting how to do it effectively so that I dont use much line of code(less if -else and for loops), may be some tricks in pandas.

You can define a function and use it like this :
def num_days_between( start, end, week_day):
num_weeks, remainder = divmod( (end-start).days, 7)
if ( week_day - start.weekday() ) % 7 < remainder:
return num_weeks + 1
else:
return num_weeks
where week_day is day number you wan to calculate count.

This code still uses a for loop and an if/else.
import datetime
import calendar
def weekday_count(start, end):
start_date = datetime.datetime.strptime(start, '%d/%m/%Y')
end_date = datetime.datetime.strptime(end, '%d/%m/%Y')
week = {}
for i in range((end_date - start_date).days):
day = calendar.day_name[(start_date + datetime.timedelta(days=i+1)).weekday()]
week[day] = week[day] + 1 if day in week else 1
return week
print(weekday_count("01/01/2017", "31/01/2017"))
# prints result
# {'Monday': 5, 'Tuesday': 5, 'Friday': 4, 'Wednesday': 4, 'Thursday': 4, 'Sunday': 5, 'Saturday': 4}

Number of Mondays in 2020 can be got using numpy library
import numpy as np
np.busday_count('2020', '2021', weekmask='Mon')

This is efficient - even in the face of ten thousands of days between start and end - and still very flexible (it iterates at most 7 times inside the sum function):
def intervening_weekdays(start, end, inclusive=True, weekdays=[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]):
if isinstance(start, datetime.datetime):
start = start.date() # make a date from a datetime
if isinstance(end, datetime.datetime):
end = end.date() # make a date from a datetime
if end < start:
# you can opt to return 0 or swap the dates around instead
raise ValueError("start date must be before end date")
if inclusive:
end += datetime.timedelta(days=1) # correct for inclusivity
try:
# collapse duplicate weekdays
weekdays = {weekday % 7 for weekday in weekdays}
except TypeError:
weekdays = [weekdays % 7]
ref = datetime.date.today() # choose a reference date
ref -= datetime.timedelta(days=ref.weekday()) # and normalize its weekday
# sum up all selected weekdays (max 7 iterations)
return sum((ref_plus - start).days // 7 - (ref_plus - end).days // 7
for ref_plus in
(ref + datetime.timedelta(days=weekday) for weekday in weekdays))
This takes both datetime.date as well as datetime.datetime objects for start and end, respectively.
Also, you can choose between a closed (inclusive=True) and a half-open (inclusive=False) interval.
By default, it calculates the number of workdays between the dates, but you can choose any set of weekdays (weekend days: weekdays=[5, 6]) or single weekdays (Wednesdays: weekdays=2) as well.

If anyone need an even simpler answer,
from datetime import date
d1 = date(2017, 1, 4)
d2 = date(2017, 1, 31)
count = 0
for d_ord in range(d1.toordinal(), d2.toordinal()):
d = date.fromordinal(d_ord)
if (d.weekday() == 4):
count += 1
print(count)

I found a simple and easy to understand code using for loop.
Take first date identify its weekday with "%a" compare it with your intrested weekday if found increment a count value. and repeat the steps till your last day.
Code is as below for your refrence i took monday as my intrested weekdays.
import datetime
A1=datetime.datetime.strptime("1/23/2016", "%m/%d/%Y")
A2=datetime.datetime.strptime("11/10/2016", "%m/%d/%Y")
count=0
week="Mon"
for i in range ((A2-A1).days): #gives the no of days from A1 to A2
if A1.strftime("%a")==week:
count+=1
A1+=datetime.timedelta(days=1)
print(count)
https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_datetime.asp

How can I get the 3rd Friday of a month in Python?

I'm trying to get stock data from Yahoo! Finance using Python 2.7.9, but I only need data for the 3rd Friday of the month. I have a function to get the data, but need a way to get the dates. I want something like this:
def get_third_fris(how_many):
# code and stuff
return list_of_fris
So that calling get_third_fris(6) will return a 6-item-long list of 3rd Fridays following the current date. The dates need to be Unix timestamps.
(I have pretty much no experience with time or datetime, so please explain what your code is doing.)
Thanks!

You can use the calendar module to list weeks, then grab the Friday of that week.
import calendar
c = calendar.Calendar(firstweekday=calendar.SUNDAY)
year = 2015; month = 2
monthcal = c.monthdatescalendar(year,month)
third_friday = [day for week in monthcal for day in week if \
day.weekday() == calendar.FRIDAY and \
day.month == month][2]
You can format to Unix timestamp, but it's non-trivial. I'll refer you to this excellent answer which has info based on whether or not your date is timezone-aware.

We do not need to import anything other than datetime. We can assume 7 days in a week and weekday 0 == Monday.
import datetime
def third_friday(year, month):
"""Return datetime.date for monthly option expiration given year and
month
"""
# The 15th is the lowest third day in the month
third = datetime.date(year, month, 15)
# What day of the week is the 15th?
w = third.weekday()
# Friday is weekday 4
if w != 4:
# Replace just the day (of month)
third = third.replace(day=(15 + (4 - w) % 7))
return third

Assuming you want a range of every 3rd Friday, you can just use pandas, sample code:
import pandas as pd
pd.date_range('2017-12-02','2020-08-31',freq='WOM-3FRI')
Output:
DatetimeIndex(['2017-12-15', '2018-01-19', '2018-02-16', '2018-03-16',
'2018-04-20', '2018-05-18', '2018-06-15', '2018-07-20',
'2018-08-17', '2018-09-21', '2018-10-19', '2018-11-16',
'2018-12-21', '2019-01-18', '2019-02-15', '2019-03-15',
'2019-04-19', '2019-05-17', '2019-06-21', '2019-07-19',
'2019-08-16', '2019-09-20', '2019-10-18', '2019-11-15',
'2019-12-20', '2020-01-17', '2020-02-21', '2020-03-20',
'2020-04-17', '2020-05-15', '2020-06-19', '2020-07-17',
'2020-08-21'],
dtype='datetime64[ns]', freq='WOM-3FRI')

You can use standard python functions to find the third friday of this month:
from datetime import timedelta, date
import calendar
def next_third_friday(d):
""" Given a third friday find next third friday"""
d += timedelta(weeks=4)
return d if d.day >= 15 else d + timedelta(weeks=1)
def third_fridays(d, n):
"""Given a date, calculates n next third fridays"""
# Find closest friday to 15th of month
s = date(d.year, d.month, 15)
result = [s + timedelta(days=(calendar.FRIDAY - s.weekday()) % 7)]
# This month's third friday passed. Find next.
if result[0] < d:
result[0] = next_third_friday(result[0])
for i in range(n - 1):
result.append(next_third_friday(result[-1]))
return result
We can apply the above function to get the timestamps of the next fridays:
import time
def timestamp(d):
return int(time.mktime(d.timetuple()))
fridays = third_fridays(date.today(), 2)
print(fridays)
print(map(timestamp, fridays))
Output:
[datetime.date(2015, 3, 20), datetime.date(2015, 4, 17)]
[1426802400, 1429218000]

How about a more straightforward answer:
import calendar
c = calendar.Calendar(firstweekday=calendar.SATURDAY)
monthcal = c.monthdatescalendar(my_year, my_month)
monthly_expire_date = monthcal[2][-1]

I generalized #pourhaus answer to find the nth day of any month:
def nth_day_of_month(month, year, day_of_week, n):
first_possible_day = {1: 1, 2: 8, 3: 15, 4: 22, 5: 29}[n]
d = datetime.date(year, month, first_possible_day)
w = d.weekday()
if w != day_of_week:
d = d.replace(day=(first_possible_day + (day_of_week - w) % 7))
return d

its easy to use dateutil to get the next friday
import dateutil.parser as dparse
from datetime import timedelta
next_friday = dparse.parse("Friday")
one_week = timedelta(days=7)
friday_after_next = next_friday + one_week
last_friday = friday_after_next + one_week
this leverages the fact that there is always a week between fridays ... although Im not sure this answers your question it should at the very least provide you with a good starting point

Using dateutil.relativedelta:
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta, FR # $ pip install python-dateutil
def third_friday_dateutil(now):
"""the 3rd Friday of the month, not the 3rd Friday after today."""
now = now.replace(day=1) # 1st day of the month
now += relativedelta(weeks=2, weekday=FR)
return now
Or using dateutil.rrule:
from datetime import date, timedelta
from dateutil.rrule import rrule, MONTHLY, FR
def third_friday_rrule(now):
return rrule(MONTHLY, count=1, byweekday=FR, bysetpos=3, dtstart=now.replace(day=1))[0]
def get_third_fris_rrule(how_many):
return list(rrule(MONTHLY, count=how_many, byweekday=FR, bysetpos=3, dtstart=date.today()+timedelta(1)))
Here's a brute force solution (15x times faster):
#!/usr/bin/env python
import calendar
from datetime import date, timedelta
from itertools import islice
DAY = timedelta(1)
WEEK = 7*DAY
def fridays(now):
while True:
if now.weekday() == calendar.FRIDAY:
while True:
yield now
now += WEEK
now += DAY
def next_month(now):
"""Return the first date that is in the next month."""
return (now.replace(day=15) + 20*DAY).replace(day=1)
def third_friday_brute_force(now):
"""the 3rd Friday of the month, not the 3rd Friday after today."""
return next(islice(fridays(now.replace(day=1)), 2, 3))
def get_third_fris(how_many):
result = []
now = date.today()
while len(result) < how_many:
fr = third_friday_brute_force(now)
if fr > now: # use only the 3rd Friday after today
result.append(fr)
now = next_month(now)
return result
print(get_third_fris(6))
Output
[datetime.date(2015, 3, 20),
datetime.date(2015, 4, 17),
datetime.date(2015, 5, 15),
datetime.date(2015, 6, 19),
datetime.date(2015, 7, 17),
datetime.date(2015, 8, 21)]
See Converting datetime.date to UTC timestamp in Python
Here's comparison with other solutions and tests (for all possible 400 years patterns).

I generalized my answer so that anyone can use it for any Nth weekday of a month and using minimal default libraries. My use was to find the DST (daylight savings time) dates for the year (2nd sunday in March & 1st sunday in November).
# Libraries:
from datetime import datetime
# Function:
def get_nth_day_of_month(year, month, Nth, weekday):
# Process is to find out what weekday the 1st of the month is
# And then go straight to the desired date by calculating it
first_of_month_weekday = datetime(year, month, 1).weekday()
day_desired = 7 * (Nth-1) + (weekday - first_of_month_weekday)
if day_desired < 1 : day_desired += 7 #correction for some 1st-weekday situations
return datetime(year, month, day_desired)
# Config:
year = 2022
month = 3 #DST starts in March
weekday = 6 #sunday
Nth = 2 #2nd sunday
dst_start = get_nth_day_of_month(year, month, Nth, weekday)
For my case, this generates the start of DST this year:
In [2]: dst_start
Out [2]: datetime.datetime(2022, 3, 13, 0, 0)
Then for the end of DST in 2022:
month = 11
Nth = 1
dst_end = get_nth_day_of_month(year, month, Nth, weekday)
The result is:
In[4]: dst_end
Out[4]: datetime.datetime(2022, 11, 5, 0, 0)
So in 2022, DST runs from 2022-03-13 to 2022-11-05.
Standard:
Days are numbered Monday = 0 to Sunday = 6

Pure python with no external libs.
Returns the expected day-of-month.
Note: Based on answer from #autonopy, but works.
from datetime import datetime
def get_nth_day_of_month(year, month, Nth, weekday):
first_of_month_weekday = datetime(year, month, 1).weekday()
# Find weekday offset from beginning of month
day_offset = (weekday - first_of_month_weekday) + 1
if day_offset < 1:
day_offset += 7 # correction for some 1st-weekday situations
# Add N weeks
return 7 * (Nth - 1) + day_offset
Tests:
>>> # first Monday of Nov 2021
>>> get_nth_day_of_month(2021, 11, 1, 0)
1
>>> # first Monday of January 2022
>>> get_nth_day_of_month(2022, 1, 1, 0)
3
>>> # first Monday of May 2022
>>> get_nth_day_of_month(2022, 5, 1, 0)
2
>>> # Mother's day 2022
>>> get_nth_day_of_month(2022, 5, 2, 0)
9

Assuming you use pandas:
def exp_friday(df):
mask = np.where((df.index.day > 14) &
(df.index.day < 22) &
(df.index.dayofweek == 4), True, False)
return df[mask]

This is a generic function to give you all the dates of a specific week in a list form.
def frecuencia_daymng(self, start_day, year, month, dayofweek):
"""dayofweek starts on MONDAY in 0 index"""
c = calendar.Calendar(firstweekday=start_day)
monthcal = c.monthdatescalendar(year, month)
ldates = []
for tdate in monthcal:
if tdate[dayofweek].month == month:
ldates.append(tdate[dayofweek])
return ldates
Lets say you want all the mondays of the 2020 10.
frecuencia_daymng(calendar.MONDAY, 2020, 10, 0)
This will give you the output.
[datetime.date(2020, 10, 5),
datetime.date(2020, 10, 12),
datetime.date(2020, 10, 19),
datetime.date(2020, 10, 26)]
So now you have the first, second ... etc monday of the month.

My suggestion is to start with the first day of the month, then find the closest Friday.
4 is represented as Friday from the datetime.weekday() method.
So we then subtract the weekday of the first of the month from 4(Friday)
If the result is negative the closest Friday found was the previous month, so we add 7 days, otherwise we already have the first Friday.
Then the result is as simple as adding another 14 days to get the third Friday and then add the timedelta representing the third Friday to the first day of the month.
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
def get_third_friday(year, month):
first_day_of_month = datetime(year, month, 1)
closest_friday = 4 - first_day_of_month.weekday()
if closest_friday < 0:
first_friday = closest_friday + 7
else:
first_friday = closest_friday
third_friday = first_friday + 14
return first_day_of_month + timedelta(third_friday)

Here's a solution where someone has figured it out already: the relativedelta module that's an extension from the Python dateutil package (pip install python-dateutil).
import datetime
from dateutil import relativedelta
def third_fridays(n):
first_of_this_month = datetime.date.today().replace(day=1)
return (
first_of_this_month
+ relativedelta.relativedelta(weekday=relativedelta.FR(3), months=i)
for i in range(n)
)
The key part here of course is the weekday=relativedelta.FR(3) which says exactly what's needed: the third Friday of the month. Here are the relevant part of the docs for the weekday parameter,
weekday:
One of the weekday instances (MO, TU, etc) available in the
relativedelta module. These instances may receive a parameter N,
specifying the Nth weekday, which could be positive or negative
(like MO(+1) or MO(-2)).
(For those new to Python return (...) is a generator expression which you can just treat as something to iterate over, e.g., for friday in third_fridays(18): print(friday))

from dateutil.relativedelta import *
from datetime import *
def find_mth_friday(your_date,m):
mth_friday = your_date + relativedelta(day=1, weekday=FR(m)) #sets day=1 in your_date and adds m fridays to it.
mth_friday_timestamp = int(mth_friday.strftime("%s")) #converting datetime to unix timestamp
return mth_friday_timestamp
def get_third_fris(n):
output_timestamps = []
today = datetime.now() #gets current system date
for i in range(1,n+1): #value of i varies from 1 to 6 if n=6
next_month = today + relativedelta(months=+i) #adds i months to current system date
third_friday = find_mth_friday(next_month,3) #finds third friday of the month using 'find_mth_friday()', the function we defined
output_timestamps.append(third_friday)
return output_timestamps
print(get_third_fris(6)) #let's try invoking our function with n=6 dates
This is what you wanted right?

Count number of sundays in current month

How can I get the numberof Sundays of the current month in Python?
Anyone got any idea about this?

This gives you the number of sundays in a current month as you wanted:
import calendar
from datetime import datetime
In [367]: len([1 for i in calendar.monthcalendar(datetime.now().year,
datetime.now().month) if i[6] != 0])
Out[367]: 4

I happened to need a solution for this, but was unsatisfactory with the solutions here, so I came up with my own:
import calendar
year = 2016
month = 3
day_to_count = calendar.SUNDAY
matrix = calendar.monthcalendar(year,month)
num_days = sum(1 for x in matrix if x[day_to_count] != 0)

I'd do it like this:
import datetime
today = datetime.date.today()
day = datetime.date(today.year, today.month, 1)
single_day = datetime.timedelta(days=1)
sundays = 0
while day.month == today.month:
if day.weekday() == 6:
sundays += 1
day += single_day
print 'Sundays:', sundays

My take: (saves having to worry about being in the right month etc...)
from calendar import weekday, monthrange, SUNDAY
y, m = 2012, 10
days = [weekday(y, m, d+1) for d in range(*monthrange(y, m))]
print days.count(SUNDAY)
Or, as #mgilson has pointed out, you can do away with the list-comp, and wrap it all up as a generator:
sum(1 for d in range(*monthrange(y,m)) if weekday(y,m,d+1)==SUNDAY)
And I suppose, you could throw in a:
from collections import Counter
days = Counter(weekday(y, m, d + 1) for d in range(*monthrange(y, m)))
print days[SUNDAY]

Another example using calendar and datetime:
import datetime
import calendar
today = datetime.date.today()
m = today.month
y = today.year
sum(1 for week in calendar.monthcalendar(y,m) if week[-1])
Perhaps a slightly faster way to do it would be:
first_day,month_len = monthrange(y,m)
date_of_first_sun = 1+6-first_day
print sum(1 for x in range(date_of_first_sun,month_len+1,7))

You can do this using ISO week numbers:
from datetime import date
bom = date.today().replace(day=1) # first day of current month
eom = (date(bom.year, 12, 31) if bom.month == 12 else
(bom.replace(month=bom.month + 1) - 1)) # last day of current month
_, b_week, _ = bom.isocalendar()
_, e_week, e_weekday = eom.isocalendar()
num_sundays = (e_week - b_week) + (1 if e_weekday == 7 else 0)
In general for a particular day of the week (1 = Monday, 7 = Sunday) the calculation is:
num_days = ((e_week - b_week) +
(-1 if b_weekday > day else 0) +
( 1 if e_weekday >= day else 0))

import calendar
MONTH = 10
sundays = 0
cal = calendar.Calendar()
for day in cal.itermonthdates(2012, MONTH):
if day.weekday() == 6 and day.month == MONTH:
sundays += 1
PAY ATTENTION:
Here are the Calendar.itermonthdates's docs:
Return an iterator for one month. The iterator will yield datetime.date
values and will always iterate through complete weeks, so it will yield
dates outside the specified month.
That's why day.month == MONTH is needed
If you want the weekdays to be in range 0-6, use day.weekday(),
if you want them to be in range 1-7, use day.isoweekday()

My solution.
The following was inspired by #Lingson's answer, but I think it does lesser loops.
import calendar
def get_number_of_weekdays(year: int, month: int) -> list:
main_calendar = calendar.monthcalendar(year, month)
number_of_weeks = len(main_calendar)
number_of_weekdays = []
for i in range(7):
number_of_weekday = number_of_weeks
if main_calendar[0][i] == 0:
number_of_weekday -= 1
if main_calendar[-1][i] == 0:
number_of_weekday -= 1
number_of_weekdays.append(number_of_weekday)
return sum(number_of_weekdays) # In my application I needed the number of each weekday, so you could return just the list to do that.