How to calculate UNIX timestamp difference using python? [duplicate]

Question

I want the diff between two timestamps which are available to me as list of strings.

date_list = ['Tue Sep 25 21:12:32 PDT 2018', 'Tue Sep 25 21:15:27 PDT 2018']

How do I get the difference in minutes or in hours ?

I saw some examples, but they are using different format of UNIX timestamp. I can't change the given date format.

This post is being discussed on meta meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/374931/… ; correct duplicate might be stackoverflow.com/questions/23704826/… — Joshua
– Joshua, Commented Oct 5, 2018 at 22:47

Massimo Costa · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-27 06:08:01Z

1

I suggest to use dateutil. For instance

from dateutil import parser

d1 = parser.parse(date_list[0])
d2 = parser.parse(date_list[1])

at this point d1 and d2 are standard datetime objects and you can use the standard methods/operators to operate on them

answered Sep 27, 2018 at 6:08

Massimo Costa

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