Number of seconds since the beginning of the day UTC timezone

Question

How do I find "number of seconds since the beginning of the day UTC timezone" in Python? I looked at the docs and didn't understand how to get this using datetime.timedelta.

Answer 1

Here's one way to do it.

from datetime import datetime, time

utcnow = datetime.utcnow()
midnight_utc = datetime.combine(utcnow.date(), time(0))
delta = utcnow - midnight_utc
print delta.seconds # <-- careful

EDIT As suggested, if you want microsecond precision, or potentially crossing a 24-hour period (i.e. delta.days > 0), use total_seconds() or the formula given by @unutbu.

print delta.total_seconds()  # 2.7
print delta.days * 24 * 60 * 60 + delta.seconds + delta.microseconds / 1e6 # < 2.7