UTCDateTime

All absolute time values within ObsPy are consistently handled with the UTCDateTime class. It is based on a high precision POSIX timestamp and not the Python datetime class because precision was an issue.

Initialization

>>> from obspy.core import UTCDateTime
>>> UTCDateTime("2012-09-07T12:15:00")
UTCDateTime(2012, 9, 7, 12, 15)
>>> UTCDateTime(2012, 9, 7, 12, 15, 0)
UTCDateTime(2012, 9, 7, 12, 15)
>>> UTCDateTime(1347020100.0)
UTCDateTime(2012, 9, 7, 12, 15)

In most cases there is no need to worry about timezones, but they are supported:

>>> UTCDateTime("2012-09-07T12:15:00+02:00")
UTCDateTime(2012, 9, 7, 10, 15)

Attribute Access

>>> time = UTCDateTime("2012-09-07T12:15:00")
>>> time.year
2012
>>> time.julday
251
>>> time.timestamp
1347020100.0
>>> time.weekday
4

Handling time differences

>>> time = UTCDateTime("2012-09-07T12:15:00")
>>> print(time + 3600)
2012-09-07T13:15:00.000000Z
>>> time2 = UTCDateTime(2012, 1, 1)
>>> print(time - time2)
21644100.0

Exercises

Calculate the number of hours passed since your birth. Optional: Include the correct time zone. The current date and time can be obtained with

>>> UTCDateTime()  

Get a list of 10 UTCDateTime objects, starting yesterday at 10:00 with a spacing of 90 minutes.
The first session starts at 09:00 and lasts for 3 hours and 15 minutes. Assuming we want to have the coffee break 1234 seconds and 5 microseconds before it ends. At what time is the coffee break?
Assume you had your last cup of coffee yesterday at breakfast. How many minutes do you have to survive with that cup of coffee?