{"id":659,"date":"2021-02-07T16:26:48","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T21:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/?p=659"},"modified":"2022-06-16T15:23:56","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T19:23:56","slug":"python-datetime-weekday-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/python-datetime-weekday-name-482616\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting the Weekday Name in Python"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Python&#8217;s DateTime module offers a wide range of time-handling functions that make life a breeze. However, there&#8217;s no direct method to return a plain-English representation of a weekday name. Fortunately, there are several easy ways to get there.<\/p>\n<h2>Getting the Date + Weekday<\/h2>\n<p>Before we take a look at getting the weekday name, let&#8217;s consider how Python&#8217;s <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">datetime<\/code> class gets a date and, subsequently, determines the day of the week for said date. There&#8217;s nothing fancy about it\u2014but it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/problem-solving-process-180215\/\">pays to know where you&#8217;re starting<\/a>.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">from datetime import datetime\r\n\r\n# Create datetime object\r\ndate = datetime.now()\r\n&gt;&gt;&gt; 2021-02-07 15:30:46.665318\r\n\r\n# Get the weekday value, as an integer\r\ndate.weekday()\r\n&gt;&gt;&gt; 6\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>This code illustrates how far the <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">datetime<\/code> class will get you before you have to start getting creative. \u00a0Before we move on, there are two things worth noting:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">weekday<\/code> method assigns Monday the value <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">0<\/code><\/li>\n<li>Another method, the <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">isoweekday<\/code>, assigns Sunday the value of <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">1<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Check out the official <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.python.org\/3\/library\/datetime.html#datetime.datetime.weekday\">datetime.weekday<\/a> documentation for more info. Now, knowing how to get an integer representation of the weekday for a given <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">datetime<\/code> object, we can start scheming on how to produce a plain-English version. Below are three approaches <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/most-popular-programming-languages-184015\/\">ranked in order<\/a> of dependencies.<\/p>\n<h2>Method 1: Do it Manually<\/h2>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\"># Define a list of weekday names\r\ndays = ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday', 'Sunday']\r\n\r\n# Index using weekday int value\r\ndays[date.weekday()]\r\n\r\n&gt;&gt;&gt; Sunday<\/pre>\n<p>This approach offers the flexibility of being able to tweak weekday naming and order on-the-fly. Need to truncate the date names? Just edit the list. Need to start with Sunday? Just re-arrange it. Need to reverse the list for some strange reason? Just\u00a0<code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">reverse<\/code> it!<\/p>\n<h3>Pros:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>No added dependencies<\/li>\n<li>No added methods to remember<\/li>\n<li>Flexibility for change<\/li>\n<li>Explicit representation in code<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Cons:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>More typing<\/li>\n<li>Not immediately resistant to duplication issues (i.e. using it across a project)<\/li>\n<li>The fear of typos<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Method 2: Use Strftime<\/h2>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\"># Convert the integer to english representation\r\ndate.date().strftime(\"%A\")\r\n\r\n&gt;&gt;&gt; Sunday<\/pre>\n<p>This method is, arguably, the most succinct. It&#8217;s a <em>reasonable<\/em> one-liner, doesn&#8217;t stray from the <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">datetime<\/code> class, and offers some flexibility once familiar with the <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.python.org\/3\/library\/datetime.html#strftime-strptime-behavior\">strftime documentation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Pros:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>No extra dependencies<\/li>\n<li>One-liner possible<\/li>\n<li>Semi-flexible<\/li>\n<li>No fear of typos<\/li>\n<li>Easy to integrate project-wide<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Cons:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Need to be familiar with <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">strftime<\/code> to change format<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Method 3: The Calendar Module<\/h2>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">import calendar\r\n\r\n# Convert using calender's day_name method\r\ncalender.day_name[date.weekday()]\r\n\r\n&gt;&gt;&gt; Sunday<\/pre>\n<p>This is really just a round-about way to achieve the same result as the first method. The added benefit here is that someone else manages the weekday list (not really a burden in this case.) The <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">calender.day_name<\/code> object is just a fancy list of all weekday names. Indexing into this object is the same as indexing into a manual list.<\/p>\n<h3>Pros:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Built-in module<\/li>\n<li>Lightweight dependency<\/li>\n<li>Uses native Python syntax for indexing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Cons:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Extra dependency<\/li>\n<li>The syntax could be simpler<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n<p>When I was first learning to code, one of the biggest surprises to me was how complex managing time and dates can be. The subtle length differences in months, leap years, converting <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">strings<\/code> to <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">datetimes<\/code>\u2014it seemed like wading into the deep end for what was such a peripheral task.<\/p>\n<p>Converting computer-friendly date representations like epoch timestamps into user-friendly representations is another annoyingly demanding task. In this case, Python&#8217;s <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">datetime<\/code> class makes it simple to get the weekday integer. After that, it&#8217;s all just syntactic sugar! Personally, I prefer method two here because it keeps everything tightly coupled to the <code class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"generic\">DateTime<\/code> module.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Python&#8217;s DateTime module offers a wide range of time-handling functions that make life a breeze. However, there&#8217;s no direct method to return a plain-English representation of a weekday name. Fortunately, there are several easy ways to get there. Getting the Date + Weekday Before we take a look at getting the weekday name, let&#8217;s consider [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[655,10],"tags":[276,277,143,278],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alpharithms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}