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Python Time Module

The time module provides various time-related functions. It is commonly used for measuring execution time, suspending execution, and formatting time.

Importing the Module

import time

Getting Current Time

time.time()

Returns the current time in seconds since the Epoch (January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 (UTC)).

import time

seconds = time.time()
print("Seconds since epoch =", seconds)

time.ctime()

Returns a string representing the current time.

import time

local_time = time.ctime()
print("Local time:", local_time)

Suspending Execution

time.sleep()

Suspends execution of the calling thread for the given number of seconds.

import time

print("Start")
time.sleep(2)
print("End")

Formatting Time

time.strftime()

Converts a struct_time object (like that returned by time.localtime()) to a string according to a format specification.

import time

named_tuple = time.localtime() # get struct_time
time_string = time.strftime("%m/%d/%Y, %H:%M:%S", named_tuple)

print(time_string)

Performance Counters

time.perf_counter()

Returns the value (in fractional seconds) of a performance counter, i.e. a clock with the highest available resolution to measure a short duration.

import time

start = time.perf_counter()
# ... do something ...
time.sleep(1)
end = time.perf_counter()
print(f"Elapsed time: {end - start}")

programming/python/python