In this tutorial, we are going to learn about various different methods which are present in the time module of python. Some of the time module methods are useful for developing applications. We will be exploring all the functions present in the current module. You can use them as you like once you kow what they can do for you.
To use the time module in python, you must import it in your script so that all its methods are available for using. To import it in your script, use the following statement:
import time
Methods Of time Module
Now, we will discuss different methods of time module one by one.
1. time() function
The time() function returns the no. of seconds elapsed since the epoch.
Here is a simple code example:
import time
print(time.time())
Output:
The output will be a float value, which represents the seconds.
2. gmtime() function
The gmtime() function will return a structure of time with nine attributes describing the current year, moth, month_day, hours, minutes, seconds, week_day, year_day, isdst(daylight value).
If you pass an argument with seconds to this method, it will return the above nine values since the epoch.
Here is a simple code example:
import time
print("Calling without any parameter")
print(time.gmtime())
print()
print("Passing seconds")
print(time.gmtime(time.time()))
Output:
Calling without any parameter
time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=9, tm_min=50, tm_sec=7, tm_wday=4, tm_yday=165, tm_isdst=0)
Passing seconds
time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=9, tm_min=50, tm_sec=7, tm_wday=4, tm_yday=165, tm_isdst=0)
3. asctime([time]) function
This function will return the time which humans can understand. We have to pass one argument called time, which is returned by the gmtime() function. If we don't pass any arguments to the method, then it will return the current time.
Here is a simple code example:
import time
print(time.asctime(time.gmtime()))
Output:
Fri Jun 14 09:53:48 2019
4. ctime([sec]) function
The ctime() function will take seconds as argument and returns the time as we saw above. If we don't pass any arguments, then it will calculate the current time.
Here is a simple code example:
import time
print(time.ctime(time.time()))
Output:
Fri Jun 14 15:31:29 2019
5. sleep([sec]) function
The sleep() function is used to halt the execution of the current thread for a specified number of seconds. It is the most used method of the time module.
Here is a simple code example:
import time
print("Before execution")
print(time.ctime(time.time()))
for i in range(10):
time.sleep(1)
print()
print("After execution")
print(time.ctime(time.time()))
Output:
Run the above code, you will see ten seconds difference.
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