[Python-Dev] Propose rejection of PEP 303 -- Extend divmod() for Multiple Divisors

[Tim Peters]

About PEP 303, I use divmod for lots (and lots) of things, but I've
got no real use for an extended divmod() either.  -1:  it would be
low-use, confusing clutter.

[Barry]
> Interesting.  Just yesterday I wrote a simple stopwatch-like timer
> script and I found that I needed three divmod calls to convert from
> seconds into a datetime.time object.

You don't need any divmods for that ...

...
> Actually, no, because datetime.time(seconds=50227) throws an exception.

That's right:  the time class models a time of day, not "seconds from
Barry's implied midnight epoch" (or something like that).  What you
wanted was a timedelta instead.  Converting that to a time is then
simplicity itself <wink>:

>>> print (datetime(1, 1, 1) + timedelta(seconds=50227)).time()
13:57:07

You have to go thru a datetime object first because time objects don't
support arithmetic either.  That isn't all bad.  By going thru a
datetime first, it's clear what happens if the number of seconds you
feed in exceeds a day's worth.  You can check for that or ignore it
then, depending on what your app wants (it may or may not be "an
error", depending on the app).