How to subtract two dates using Python?

Question

How do I know the difference in days between two dates using Python?

For example; How to know how many days there are between 22/11/2013 and 25/03/2014, considering a possible leap year.

Answer 1

Just instantiate the two dates as objects datetime.date and subtract them:

In [1]: import datetime

In [2]: data1 = datetime.date(day=22, month=11, year=2013)

In [3]: data2 = datetime.date(day=25, month=3, year=2014)

In [4]: data2-data1
Out[4]: datetime.timedelta(123)

In [5]: diferenca = data2-data1

In [6]: diferenca.days
Out[6]: 123

Answer 2

There’s another way too:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from datetime import datetime

def diff_days(date1, date2):
    d1 = datetime.strptime(date1, "%d-%m-%Y")
    d2 = datetime.strptime(date2, "%d-%m-%Y")
    return abs((date2 - date1).days)

Answer 3

You can also use variables instead of fixed values.

For example:

import datetime    
tempo = datetime.date.today()    
dia = int(input('Dia de Nascimento: '))    
mes = int(input('Mês de Nascimento: '))    
ano = int(input('Ano de nascimento: '))    
tempo2 = datetime.date(day=dia, month=mes, year=ano)    
alistamento = tempo - tempo2    
print(alistamento)

He will return you the amount of days. In fact I want him to return me in Years, not in days.