Python DateTime – Date Class

The object of the Date class represents the naive date containing year, month, and date according to the current Gregorian calendar. This date can be extended indefinitely in both directions. The January 1 of year 1 is called day 1 and January 2 or year 2 is called day 2 and so on.

Syntax:

class datetime.date(year, month, day)

The arguments must be in the following range –

• MINYEAR(1) <= year <= MAXYEAR(9999)
• 1 <= month <= 12
• 1 <= day <= number of days in the given month and year

Note: If the argument is not an integer it will raise a TypeError and if it is outside the range a ValueError will be raised. 

Example:

Python3

# Python program to
# demonstrate date class

# import the date class
from datetime import date

# initializing constructor
# and passing arguments in the
# format year, month, date
my_date = date(2020, 12, 11)

print("Date passed as argument is", my_date)

# Uncommenting my_date = date(1996, 12, 39)
# will raise an ValueError as it is
# outside range

# uncommenting my_date = date('1996', 12, 11)
# will raise a TypeError as a string is
# passed instead of integer

Output

Date passed as argument is 2020-12-11

Class Attributes

Let’s see the attributes provided by this class – 

Attribute Name	Description
min	The minimum representable date
max	The maximum representable date
resolution	The minimum possible difference between date objects
year	The range of year must be between MINYEAR and MAXYEAR
month	The range of month must be between 1 and 12
day	The range of day must be between 1 and number of days in the given month of the given year

Example 1: Getting min and max representable date 

Python3

from datetime import date

# Getting min date
mindate = date.min
print("Min Date supported", mindate)

# Getting max date
maxdate = date.max
print("Max Date supported", maxdate)

Output

Min Date supported 0001-01-01
Max Date supported 9999-12-31

Example 2: Accessing the year, month, and date attribute from the date class

Python3

from datetime import date

# creating the date object
Date = date(2020, 12, 11)

# Accessing the attributes
print("Year:", Date.year)
print("Month:", Date.month)
print("Day:", Date.day)

Output

Year: 2020
Month: 12
Day: 11

Class Functions

 Date class provides various functions to work with date object, like we can get the today’s date, date from the current timestamp, date from the proleptic Gregorian ordinal, where January 1 of year 1 has ordinal 1, etc. Let’s see the list of all the functions provided by this class – 

List of all Date Class functions

Function Name	Description
ctime()	Return a string representing the date
fromisocalendar()	Returns a date corresponding to the ISO calendar
fromisoformat()	Returns a date object from the string representation of the date
fromordinal()	Returns a date object from the proleptic Gregorian ordinal, where January 1 of year 1 has ordinal 1
fromtimestamp()	Returns a date object from the POSIX timestamp
isocalendar()	Returns a tuple year, week, and weekday
isoformat()	Returns the string representation of the date
isoweekday()	Returns the day of the week as integer where Monday is 1 and Sunday is 7
replace()	Changes the value of the date object with the given parameter
strftime()	Returns a string representation of the date with the given format
timetuple()	Returns an object of type time.struct_time
today()	Returns the current local date
toordinal()	Return the proleptic Gregorian ordinal of the date, where January 1 of year 1 has ordinal 1
weekday()	Returns the day of the week as integer where Monday is 0 and Sunday is 6

Let’s see certain examples of the above functions

Example 1: Getting the current date and also change the date to string

Python3

# Python program to
# print current date

from datetime import date

# calling the today
# function of date class
today = date.today()

print("Today's date is", today)

# Converting the date to the string
Str = date.isoformat(today)
print("String Representation", Str)
print(type(Str))

Output

Today's date is 2021-07-23
String Representation 2021-07-23
<class 'str'>

Example 2: Getting the weekday from the day and proleptic Gregorian ordinal

Python3

# Python program to
# print current date

from datetime import date

# calling the today
# function of date class
today = date.today()

# Getting Weekday using weekday()
# method
print("Weekday using weekday():", today.weekday())

# Getting Weekday using isoweekday()
# method
print("Weekday using isoweekday():", today.isoweekday())

# Getting the proleptic Gregorian
# ordinal
print("proleptic Gregorian ordinal:", today.toordinal())

# Getting the date from the ordinal
print("Date from ordinal", date.fromordinal(737000))

Output

Weekday using weekday(): 4
Weekday using isoweekday(): 5
proleptic Gregorian ordinal: 737994
Date from ordinal 2018-11-02

Note: For more information on Python Datetime, refer to Python Datetime Tutorial