Python - Get Yesterday's Date as a String in Yyyy-Mm-Dd Format
As an Input to an Api Request I Need to Get Yesterday's Date as a String in the Format Yyyy-Mm-Dd. I Have a Working Version Which Is: Yesterday = Datetime...
As an input to an API request I need to get yesterday's date as a string in the format YYYY-MM-DD. I have a working version which is:
yesterday = datetime.date.fromordinal(datetime.date.today().toordinal()-1)
report_date = str(yesterday.year) + \
('-' if len(str(yesterday.month)) == 2 else '-0') + str(yesterday.month) + \
('-' if len(str(yesterday.day)) == 2 else '-0') + str(yesterday.day)
There must be a more elegant way to do this, interested for educational purposes as much as anything else!
5 Answers
You Just need to subtract one day from today's date. In Python datetime.timedelta object lets you create specific spans of time as a timedelta object.
datetime.timedelta(1) gives you the duration of "one day" and is subtractable from a datetime object. After you subtracted the objects you can use datetime.strftime in order to convert the result --which is a date object-- to string format based on your format of choice:
>>> from datetime import datetime, timedelta
>>> yesterday = datetime.now() - timedelta(1)
>>> type(yesterday)
>>> datetime.datetime
>>> datetime.strftime(yesterday, '%Y-%m-%d')
'2015-05-26'
Note that instead of calling the datetime.strftime function, you can also directly use strftime method of datetime objects:
>>> (datetime.now() - timedelta(1)).strftime('%Y-%m-%d')
'2015-05-26'
As a function:
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
def yesterday(frmt='%Y-%m-%d', string=True):
yesterday = datetime.now() - timedelta(1)
if string:
return yesterday.strftime(frmt)
return yesterday
example:
In [10]: yesterday()
Out[10]: '2022-05-13'
In [11]: yesterday(string=False)
Out[11]: datetime.datetime(2022, 5, 13, 12, 34, 31, 701270)
An alternative answer that uses today() method to calculate current date and then subtracts one using timedelta(). Rest of the steps remain the same.
from datetime import date, timedelta
today = date.today()
yesterday = today - timedelta(days = 1)
print(today)
print(yesterday)
Output:
2019-06-14
2019-06-13
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.date.fromordinal(datetime.date.today().toordinal()-1).strftime("%F")
'2015-05-26'
Calling .isoformat() on a date object will give you YYYY-MM-DD
from datetime import date, timedelta
(date.today() - timedelta(1)).isoformat()
I'm trying to use only import datetime based on this answer.
import datetime
oneday = datetime.timedelta(days=1)
yesterday = datetime.date.today() - oneday
Maya is a hardware enthusiast who tests and reviews smart home devices, smartphones, wearables, and audio gear. She focuses on practical consumer value and build quality.
