Python: time module

time module provides number of time related functions. All the functions provided by time module are not available on all platforms.

Following are some of the conventions you should aware while using time module.

Epoch : It is point where time starts. On UNIX systems epoch is 1970. 'time.gmtime(0)' returns the epoch value in python.

>>> import time
>>> time.gmtime(0)
time.struct_time(tm_year=1970, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=1, tm_isdst=0)
>>> 

All the dates and times represented internally as seconds since epoch. Time can be represented as floating point value (or) as a time tuple (Using struct_time class).

struct_time class

strut_time class is used to represent the time in convenient way. It is the return type for the methods gmtime(), localtime(), and strptime().

>>> import time
>>> time.gmtime()
time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=9, tm_hour=14, tm_min=18, tm_sec=48, tm_wday=0, tm_yday=313, tm_isdst=0)

As you observe above code snippet, gmtime() method returns struct_time object. Following table describes each value of the struts_time instance.

Index	Attribute	Description
0	tm_year	Specifies the year
1	tm_mon	Specifies the month between 1-12
2	tm_mday	Specifies the day between 1-31
3	tm_hour	Specifies the hour between 0-23
4	tm_min	Specifies the minute between 0-59
5	tm_sec	Specifies the seconds between 0-59
6	tm_wday	Specifies the day between 0-6(MON-SUN)
7	tm_yday	Specifies the day between 1-366
8	tm_isdst	Represent day light saving, has 3 values -1, 0, 1.

You can access the values of struct_time using index notation.

>>> import time
>>> current_time=time.gmtime()
>>> 
>>> print("year:",current_time[0])
year: 2015
>>> print("month:",current_time[1])
month: 11
>>> print("today date:",current_time[2])
today date: 9

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