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how to convert datetime-like string into milliseconds

I have a user-defined function (return_times) that takes json file and returns two datetime-like strings.
time_1, time_2= return_times("file.json")
print(time_1, time_2) # outputs: 00:00:11.352 00:01:51.936
By datetime-like string I mean 00:00:11.352 which suits '%H:%M:%S.%f' formatting. However, when I try to convert them into milliseconds, I get negative values.
from datetime import datetime
dt_obj_1 = datetime.strptime(time_1, '%H:%M:%S.%f')
start_ms = dt_obj_1.timestamp() * 1000
dt_obj_2 = datetime.strptime(time_2, '%H:%M:%S.%f')
end_ms = dt_obj_2.timestamp() * 1000
print(start_ms, end_ms ) # outputs: -2209019260648.0 -2209019160064.0
If I success I would like to trim a video with the following command:
from moviepy.video.io.ffmpeg_tools import ffmpeg_extract_subclip
ffmpeg_extract_subclip("long_video.mp4", start_ms, end_ms, targetname="video_trimmed.mp4"), so just delete ` * 1000` part.
Note that ffmpeg_extract_subclip requires its t1 and t2 parameters to be in seconds, not in milliseconds as I initially thought.
Because of those negative integers I am not able to successfully run the trimming process.
I searched the web that mainly discusses several formats for the year, month and day, but not '%H:%M:%S.%f'.
What may I be overlooking?

What may I be overlooking?
time.strptime docs
The default values used to fill in any missing data when more accurate
values cannot be inferred are (1900, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, -1).
whilst start of epoch is 1970. You might get what you want by computing delta between what you parsed and default strptime as follows:
import datetime
time1 = "00:00:11.352"
delta = datetime.datetime.strptime(time1, "%H:%M:%S.%f") - datetime.datetime.strptime("", "")
time_s = delta.total_seconds()
print(time_s)
output
11.352

You need to add the year date (year, month, day) to datetime, else this will default to 1 January 1900.
What you do is this:
from datetime import datetime
s = "00:00:11.352"
f = '%H:%M:%S.%f'
datetime.strptime(s, f) # datetime.datetime(1900, 1, 1, 0, 0, 11, 352000)
One way to do this is to append the date-string to the time-string you receive from return_times

From https://stackoverflow.com/a/59200108/2681662
The year 1900 was before the beginning of the UNIX epoch, which
was in 1970, so the number of seconds returned by timestamp must be
negative.
What to do?
It's better to use a time object instead of a datetime object.
from datetime import time
time_1 = "00:00:11.352"
hours, minutes, seconds = time_1.split(":")
print(time(hour=int(hours), minute=int(minutes), second=int(float(seconds)),
microsecond=int(float(seconds) % 1 * 1000000)))

You can split the time string into hours, minutes, seconds and miliseconds and with some simple math calculations, you get the whole time in miliseconds

How to add a certain time to a datetime?

I want to add hours to a datetime and use:
date = date_object + datetime.timedelta(hours=6)
Now I want to add a time:
time='-7:00' (string) plus 4 hours.
I tried hours=time+4 but this doesn't work. I think I have to int the string like int(time) but this doesn't work either.

Better you parse your time like below and access datetime attributes for getting time components from the parsed datetime object
input_time = datetime.strptime(yourtimestring,'yourtimeformat')
input_seconds = input_time.second # for seconds
input_minutes = input_time.minute # for minutes
input_hours = input_time.hour # for hours
# Usage: input_time = datetime.strptime("07:00","%M:%S")
Rest you have datetime.timedelta method to compose the duration.
new_time = initial_datetime + datetime.timedelta(hours=input_hours,minutes=input_minutes,seconds=input_seconds)
See docs strptime
and datetime format

You need to convert to a datetime object in order to add timedelta to your current time, then return it back to just the time portion.
Using date.today() just uses the arbitrary current date and sets the time to the time you supply. This allows you to add over days and reset the clock to 00:00.
dt.time() prints out the result you were looking for.
from datetime import date, datetime, time, timedelta
dt = datetime.combine(date.today(), time(7, 00)) + timedelta(hours=4)
print dt.time()
Edit:
To get from a string time='7:00' to what you could split on the colon and then reference each.
this_time = this_time.split(':') # make it a list split at :
this_hour = this_time[0]
this_min = this_time[1]
Edit 2:
To put it all back together then:
from datetime import date, datetime, time, timedelta
this_time = '7:00'
this_time = this_time.split(':') # make it a list split at :
this_hour = int(this_time[0])
this_min = int(this_time[1])
dt = datetime.combine(date.today(), time(this_hour, this_min)) + timedelta(hours=4)
print dt.time()
If you already have a full date to use, as mentioned in the comments, you should convert it to a datetime using strptime. I think another answer walks through how to use it so I'm not going to put an example.

Python strftime clock

I am trying to write a countdown clock script. I want to use a set date in the future and have it count down in a nice readable format. Hours, Min, Sec. I am going to print to a 16x2 lCD display. The problem I'm having is trying to take the output of the difference between dates into a nice format. I have attached what I have so far. I receive the error:
AttributeError: 'datetime.timedelta' object has no attribute 'strftime'
This is my code:
from datetime import datetime
from time import strftime
deploy = datetime(2015, 3, 21, 0, 0)
mydate = datetime.now() - deploy
print (mydate.strftime("%b %d %H:%M:%S"))
I know how to print to my LCD and create a loop, just need help with this part.

There are two issues:
the time difference may be incorrect if you use local time represented as a naive datetime object if the corresponding local times have different utc offsets e.g., around a DST transition
the difference is timedelta object that has no strftime() method
To fix it, convert deploy from local timezone to UTC:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import time
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
deploy = datetime(2015, 3, 21, 0, 0) # assume local time
timestamp = time.mktime(deploy.timetuple()) # may fail, see the link below
deploy_utc = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(timestamp)
elapsed = deploy_utc - datetime.utcnow() # `deploy` is in the future
where elapsed is the elapsed time not counting leap seconds (such as 2015-07-01 00:59:60 BST+0100).
More details on when time.mktime() may fail see at Find if 24 hrs have passed between datetimes - Python.
To convert timedelta to string, you could use str() function:
print(elapsed) # print full timedelta
# remove microseconds
trunc_micros = timedelta(days=elapsed.days, seconds=elapsed.seconds)
print(trunc_micros) # -> 20 days, 13:44:14 <- 17 chars
# remove comma
print(str(trunc_micros).replace(',', ''))
# -> 20 days 13:44:14 <- 16 chars
If you want a different format then convert to hours, minutes, second using divmod() function:
seconds = elapsed.days*86400 + elapsed.seconds # drop microseconds
minutes, seconds = divmod(seconds, 60)
hours, minutes = divmod(minutes, 60)
print("{hours:02d}:{minutes:02d}:{seconds:02d}".format(**vars()))
# -> 493:44:14

Convert datetime to Unix timestamp and convert it back in python

I have dt = datetime(2013,9,1,11), and I would like to get a Unix timestamp of this datetime object.
When I do (dt - datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds() I got the timestamp 1378033200.
When converting it back using datetime.fromtimestamp I got datetime.datetime(2013, 9, 1, 6, 0).
The hour doesn't match. What did I miss here?

solution is
import time
import datetime
d = datetime.date(2015,1,5)
unixtime = time.mktime(d.timetuple())

If you want to convert a python datetime to seconds since epoch you should do it explicitly:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime(2012, 04, 01, 0, 0).strftime('%s')
'1333234800'
>>> (datetime.datetime(2012, 04, 01, 0, 0) - datetime.datetime(1970, 1, 1)).total_seconds()
1333238400.0
In Python 3.3+ you can use timestamp() instead:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime(2012, 4, 1, 0, 0).timestamp()
1333234800.0

What you missed here is timezones.
Presumably you've five hours off UTC, so 2013-09-01T11:00:00 local and 2013-09-01T06:00:00Z are the same time.
You need to read the top of the datetime docs, which explain about timezones and "naive" and "aware" objects.
If your original naive datetime was UTC, the way to recover it is to use utcfromtimestamp instead of fromtimestamp.
On the other hand, if your original naive datetime was local, you shouldn't have subtracted a UTC timestamp from it in the first place; use datetime.fromtimestamp(0) instead.
Or, if you had an aware datetime object, you need to either use a local (aware) epoch on both sides, or explicitly convert to and from UTC.
If you have, or can upgrade to, Python 3.3 or later, you can avoid all of these problems by just using the timestamp method instead of trying to figure out how to do it yourself. And even if you don't, you may want to consider borrowing its source code.
(And if you can wait for Python 3.4, it looks like PEP 341 is likely to make it into the final release, which means all of the stuff J.F. Sebastian and I were talking about in the comments should be doable with just the stdlib, and working the same way on both Unix and Windows.)

Rather than this expression to create a POSIX timestamp from dt,
(dt - datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds()
Use this:
int(dt.strftime("%s"))
I get the right answer in your example using the second method.
EDIT: Some followup... After some comments (see below), I was curious about the lack of support or documentation for %s in strftime. Here's what I found:
In the Python source for datetime and time, the string STRFTIME_FORMAT_CODES tells us:
"Other codes may be available on your platform.
See documentation for the C library strftime function."
So now if we man strftime (on BSD systems such as Mac OS X), you'll find support for %s:
"%s is replaced by the number of seconds since the Epoch, UTC (see mktime(3))."
Anyways, that's why %s works on the systems it does. But there are better solutions to OP's problem (that take timezones into account). See #abarnert's accepted answer here.

For working with UTC timezones:
time_stamp = calendar.timegm(dt.timetuple())
datetime.utcfromtimestamp(time_stamp)

You've missed the time zone info (already answered, agreed)
arrow package allows to avoid this torture with datetimes; It is already written, tested, pypi-published, cross-python (2.6 — 3.xx).
All you need: pip install arrow (or add to dependencies)
Solution for your case
dt = datetime(2013,9,1,11)
arrow.get(dt).timestamp
# >>> 1378033200
bc = arrow.get(1378033200).datetime
print(bc)
# >>> datetime.datetime(2013, 9, 1, 11, 0, tzinfo=tzutc())
print(bc.isoformat())
# >>> '2013-09-01T11:00:00+00:00'

If your datetime object represents UTC time, don't use time.mktime, as it assumes the tuple is in your local timezone. Instead, use calendar.timegm:
>>> import datetime, calendar
>>> d = datetime.datetime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0)
>>> calendar.timegm(d.timetuple())
60

def dt2ts(dt, utc=False):
if utc:
return calendar.timegm(dt.timetuple())
if dt.tzinfo is None:
return int(time.mktime(dt.timetuple()))
utc_dt = dt.astimezone(tz.tzutc()).timetuple()
return calendar.timegm(utc_dt)
If you want UTC timestamp :time.mktime just for local dt .Use calendar.timegm is safe but dt must the utc zone so change the zone to utc. If dt in UTC just use calendar.timegm.

def datetime_to_epoch(d1):
"""
January 1st, 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC is referred to as the Unix epoch
:param d1: input date
:return: seconds since unix epoch
"""
if not d1.tzinfo:
raise ValueError("date is missing timezone information")
d2 = datetime(1970, 1, 1, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
time_delta = d1 - d2
ts = int(time_delta.total_seconds())
return ts
def epoch_to_datetime_string(timestamp, tz_name="UTC", **kwargs):
"""
method to convert unix timestamp to date time string
:param ts: 10 digit unix timestamp in seconds
:param tz_name: timezone name
:param kwargs: formatter=<formatter-string>
:return: date time string in timezone
"""
naive_date = datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp)
aware_date = naive_date.astimezone(pytz.timezone(tz_name))
formatter = kwargs.pop("formatter", "%d %b %Y %H:%M:%S")
return aware_date.strftime(formatter)

Well, when converting TO unix timestamp, python is basically assuming UTC, but while converting back it will give you a date converted to your local timezone.
See this question/answer;
Get timezone used by datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp()

This class will cover your needs, you can pass the variable into ConvertUnixToDatetime & call which function you want it to operate based off.
from datetime import datetime
import time
class ConvertUnixToDatetime:
def __init__(self, date):
self.date = date
# Convert unix to date object
def convert_unix(self):
unix = self.date
# Check if unix is a string or int & proceeds with correct conversion
if type(unix).__name__ == 'str':
unix = int(unix[0:10])
else:
unix = int(str(unix)[0:10])
date = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(unix).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
return date
# Convert date to unix object
def convert_date(self):
date = self.date
# Check if datetime object or raise ValueError
if type(date).__name__ == 'datetime':
unixtime = int(time.mktime(date.timetuple()))
else:
raise ValueError('You are trying to pass a None Datetime object')
return type(unixtime).__name__, unixtime
if __name__ == '__main__':
# Test Date
date_test = ConvertUnixToDatetime(datetime.today())
date_test = date_test.convert_date()
print(date_test)
# Test Unix
unix_test = ConvertUnixToDatetime(date_test[1])
print(unix_test.convert_unix())

import time
from datetime import datetime
time.mktime(datetime.now().timetuple())

How do I combine a timezone aware date and time in Python?

I have a date and a time that I'm attempting to combine in Python. The time is timezone aware.
However, when I try and combine them, I get the wrong time.
import pytz
from datetime import time, date
NYC_TIME = pytz.timezone('America/New_York')
start_date = date(2012, 7, 7)
start_time = time(hour = 0, tzinfo = NYC_TIME)
combined = datetime.combine(start_date, start_time)
print combined
print NYC_TIME.normalize(combined)
This prints 2012-07-07 00:00:00-05:00, which normalizes to 2012-07-07 01:00:00-04:00. Why is this happening? How can I avoid it?

A time without a date attached must assume it's not in the Daylight Saving period. Once you attach a date to it, that assumption can be corrected. The zone offset changes, and the time changes as well to keep it at the same UTC equivalent.