Time Functions in Python | Set 1 (time(), ctime(), sleep()…)

Python has defined a module, “time” which allows us to handle various operations regarding time, its conversions and representations, which find its use in various applications in life. The beginning of time started measuring from 1 January, 12:00 am, 1970 and this very time is termed as “epoch” in Python.

Operations on Time in Python 

Python time.time() Function

Python time() function is used to count the number of seconds elapsed since the epoch. 

Python3

# Python code to demonstrate the working of
# time()

#  importing "time" module for time operations
import time

# using time() to display time since epoch
print ("Seconds elapsed since the epoch are : ",end="")
print (time.time())

Python time.gmtime() Function

Python gmtime() function returns a structure with 9 values each representing a time attribute in sequence. It converts seconds into time attributes(days, years, months etc.) till specified seconds from the epoch. If no seconds are mentioned, time is calculated till the present. The structure attribute table is given below. 

Index   Attributes   Values
 0        tm_year     2008
 1        tm_mon      1 to 12
 2        tm_mday     1 to 31
 3        tm_hour     0 to 23
 4        tm_min      0 to 59
 5        tm_sec      0 to 61 (60 or 61 are leap-seconds)
 6        tm_wday     0 to 6 
 7        tm_yday     1 to 366
 8        tm_isdst    -1, 0, 1 where -1 means Library determines DST

Python3

# Python code to demonstrate the working of gmtime()
import time
# using gmtime() to return the time attribute structure
print ("Time calculated acc. to given seconds is : ")
print (time.gmtime())

Output: 

Time calculated acc. to given seconds is : 
time.struct_time(tm_year=2016, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=2,
tm_hour=7, tm_min=12, tm_sec=31, tm_wday=1, 
tm_yday=215, tm_isdst=0)

Python time.asctime() and time.ctime() Function

Python time.asctime() function takes a time-attributed string produced by gmtime() and returns a 24-character string denoting time.Python time.ctime() function returns a 24-character time string but takes seconds as an argument and computes time till mentioned seconds. If no argument is passed, time is calculated till the present.

Python3

# Python code to demonstrate the working of
# asctime() and ctime()

#  importing "time" module for time operations
import time

# initializing time using gmtime()
ti = time.gmtime()

# using asctime() to display time acc. to time mentioned
print ("Time calculated using asctime() is : ",end="")
print (time.asctime(ti))


# using ctime() to display time string using seconds
print ("Time calculated using ctime() is : ", end="")
print (time.ctime())

Output: 

Time calculated using asctime() is : Tue Aug  2 07:47:02 2016
Time calculated using ctime() is : Tue Aug  2 07:47:02 2016

Python time.sleep() Function

This method is used to halt the program execution for the time specified in the arguments.

Python3

# Python code to demonstrate the working of
# sleep()

#  importing "time" module for time operations
import time

# using ctime() to show present time
print ("Start Execution : ",end="")
print (time.ctime())

# using sleep() to hault execution
time.sleep(4)

# using ctime() to show present time
print ("Stop Execution : ",end="")
print (time.ctime())

Output: 

Start Execution : Tue Aug  2 07:59:03 2016
Stop Execution : Tue Aug  2 07:59:07 2016

Python time.mktime() Function

In this example, we have created a struct_time object with a tuple of values for each of its fields then we have passed the object to the time.mktime() to convert it to a floating-point number representing the number of seconds since the Unix epoch.

Python3

import time

# Create a struct_time object representing a date and time
my_time = time.strptime("2023-05-10 14:30:00",
                        "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")

# Convert the struct_time object to a floating-point number
seconds_since_epoch = time.mktime(my_time)

print("Seconds since epoch:", seconds_since_epoch)

Output:

Seconds since epoch: 1683709200.0

Python time.localtime() Function

In this example, we call time.localtime() with no argument to get the current local time as a struct_time.

Python3

import time
current_time = time.localtime()
print(current_time)

Output:

time.struct_time(tm_year=2023, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=10, 
tm_hour=12, tm_min=42, tm_sec=51, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=130, tm_isdst=0)

Python time.strftime() Function

It takes a format string as its first argument, which specifies the desired format of the output string.

Python3

import time
now = time.localtime()
formatted_time = time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", now)
print(formatted_time)

Output:

2023-05-10 13:42:04