How to compare two dates?

Use time

Let's say you have the initial dates as strings like these:

date1 = "31/12/2015"
date2 = "01/01/2016"

You can do the following:

newdate1 = time.strptime(date1, "%d/%m/%Y")
newdate2 = time.strptime(date2, "%d/%m/%Y")

to convert them to python's date format. Then, the comparison is obvious:

• newdate1 > newdate2 will return False
• newdate1 < newdate2 will return True

Use the datetime method and the operator < and its kin.

>>> from datetime import datetime, timedelta
>>> past = datetime.now() - timedelta(days=1)
>>> present = datetime.now()
>>> past < present
True
>>> datetime(3000, 1, 1) < present
False
>>> present - datetime(2000, 4, 4)
datetime.timedelta(4242, 75703, 762105)

datetime.date(2011, 1, 1) < datetime.date(2011, 1, 2) will return True.

datetime.date(2011, 1, 1) - datetime.date(2011, 1, 2) will return datetime.timedelta(-1).

datetime.date(2011, 1, 1) + datetime.date(2011, 1, 2) will return datetime.timedelta(1).

see the docs.

Other answers using datetime and comparisons also work for time only, without a date.

For example, to check if right now it is more or less than 8:00 a.m., we can use:

import datetime

eight_am = datetime.time( 8,0,0 ) # Time, without a date

And later compare with:

datetime.datetime.now().time() > eight_am  

which will return True