Difference between two times (working ugly code, needs polish)

[Steve Holden]

Shawn Milochik wrote:
> On 9/11/07, Grant Edwards <grante at visi.com> wrote:
>> On 2007-09-11, Shawn Milochik <Shawn at Milochik.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have done what I wanted, but I think there must be a much better way.
>> See the strptime() function in either the time or the datetime
>> modules:
>>
>> http://docs.python.org/lib/module-time.html
>> http://docs.python.org/lib/module-datetime.html
>>
> 
> 
> Grant:
> 
> Thanks, this works, and is much shorter. Any further improvements, anyone?
> 
> def isOld(lastUpdate, runTimeStamp):
> 
>    oneDay = 60 * 60 * 24
> 
>    lastUpdate = time.mktime(time.strptime(lastUpdate, "%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M"))
>    runTimeStamp = time.mktime(time.strptime(runTimeStamp, "%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M"))
> 
>    return (runTimeStamp - lastUpdate) / oneDay

I suppose really oneDay should be a global (i.e. outside the function 
definition). Apart from that it would be hard to improve on: obvious, 
easy to read, in short - pythonic.

Are you concerned about daylight savings? That could certainly introduce 
a whole new level of complexity into the problem. Let's hope not ...


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