[Python-Dev] datetime.timedelta total_microseconds

[Chris Barker]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 11:58 AM Rob Cliffe via Python-Dev <
python-dev at python.org> wrote:

> A function with "microseconds" in the name IMO misleadingly suggests that
> it has something closer to microsecond accuracy than a 1-second granularity.
>

it sure does, but `delta.total_seconds()` is a float, so ms accuracy is
preserved.

However, if you DO want a "timedelta_to_microseconds" function, it really
should use the microseconds field in the timedelta object. I haven't
thought it through, but it makes me nervous to convert to floating point,
and then back again -- for some large values of timedelta some precision
may be lost.

Also:

_MICROSECONDS_PER_SECOND = 1000000


really? why in the world would you define a constant for something that
simple that can never change? (and probably isn't used in more than one
place anyway

As Alexander pointed out the canonical way to spell this would be:

delta / timedelta(microseconds=1)

but I think that is less than obvious to the usual user, so I think a:

delta.total_microseconds()

would be a reasonable addition.

I know I use .totalseconds() quite a bit, and would not want to have to
spell it:

delta / timedelta(seconds=1)

(and can't do that in py2 anyway)

-CHB

-- 

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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