A date math (aka datemath) parser compatiable with the elasticsearch 'date math' format

Working with date objects in python has always been interesting. Having a background in php, I have been looking for quite some time ( no pun intended ) for a way to do date time interpolation similar to php's strtotime() function. While the arrow module comes close, I needed something that could turn date math type strings into datetime objects for use in tattle.io and other projects I use in elasticsearch. I have found even more uses for it, including AWS cloudwatch and various other projects and hopefully you will too.

Date Math is the short hand arithmetic to find relative time to fixed moments in date and time. Similar to the SOLR date math format, Elasticsearch has its own built in format for short hand date math and this module aims to support that same coverage in python.

Documentation from elasticsearch: http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/mapping-date-format.html#date-math

The date type supports using date math expression when using it in a query/filter (mainly makes sense in range query/filter).

The expression starts with an "anchor" date, which can be either now or a date string (in the applicable format) ending with ||.

It can then follow by a math expression, supporting +, - and / (rounding).

The units supported are y (year), M (month), w (week), d (day), h (hour), m (minute), and s (second).

Here are some samples: now+1h, now+1h+1m, now+1h/d, 2012-01-01||+1M/d.

Note, when doing range type searches, and the upper value is inclusive, the rounding will properly be rounded to the ceiling instead of flooring it.

y or Y      =   'year'
M           =   'month'
m           =   'minute'
d or D      =   'day'
w           =   'week'
h or H      =   'hour'
s or S      =   'second'

pip install python-datemath

Assuming our datetime is currently: '2016-01-01T00:00:00-00:00'

Expression:                 Result:
now-1h                      2015-12-31T23:00:00+00:00
now-1y                      2015-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
now+1y+2d                   2017-01-03T00:00:00+00:00
now+12h                     2016-01-01T12:00:00+00:00
now+1d/d                    2016-01-03T00:00:00+00:00
now-2.5h                    2015-12-31T21:30:00+00:00
+2h                         2016-01-01T02:00:00+00:00
+1h/h                       2016-01-01T02:00:00+00:00
now+1w/w                    2016-01-11T00:00:00+00:00
now/d+7d+12h                2016-01-08T12:00:00+00:00
2016-01-01||+1d             2016-01-02T00:00:00+00:00
2015-01-01||+2w             2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

By default datemath return an arrow date object representing your timestamp.

>>> from datemath import dm
>>>
>>> dm('now+1h')
<Arrow [2016-01-01T01:00:00+00:00]>
>>> dm('now+1h+1m')
<Arrow [2016-01-01T01:01:00+00:00]>
>>> dm('now+1h/d')
<Arrow [2016-01-02T00:00:00+00:00]>
>>> dm('now-1d')
<Arrow [2015-12-31T00:00:00+00:00]>
>>> dm('2016-01-01||+1/d')
<Arrow [2016-01-02T00:00:00+00:00]>
>>> dm('now/d+2h+3m')
<Arrow [2016-01-01T02:03:00+00:00]>
>>>

If you would rather have a string, you can use arrow's .format() method.

For for info on string formatting, check out arrows tokens section: http://crsmithdev.com/arrow/#tokens

>>> from datemath import dm
>>>
>>> src_timestamp = dm('2016-01-01')
>>> print src_timestamp
2016-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
>>>
>>> new_timestamp = dm('-2w', now=src_timestamp)
>>> print new_timestamp
2015-12-18T00:00:00+00:00
>>>
>>> new_timestamp.format('YYYY.MM.DD')
u'2015.12.18'
>>>

Rather have a python datetime object instead? Just pass along the 'datetime' type

from datemath import dm
>>> dm('now', type='datetime')
datetime.datetime(2016, 1, 22, 22, 58, 28, 338060, tzinfo=tzutc())
>>>
>>> dm('now+2d-1m', type='datetime')
datetime.datetime(2016, 1, 24, 22, 57, 45, 394470, tzinfo=tzutc())

Oh, you want an Epoch/Unix Timestamp back instead? Yeah, we can do that.

>>> dm('now+2d-1m', type='timestamp')
1453676321

By default all objects returned by datemath are in UTC. If you want them them in a different timezone, just pass along the tz argument. Timezone list can be found here: https://gist.github.com/pamelafox/986163

from datemath import dm 
>>> dm('now')
<Arrow [2016-01-26T01:00:53.601088+00:00]>
>>>
>>> dm('now', tz='US/Eastern')
<Arrow [2016-01-25T20:01:05.976880-05:00]>
>>>
>>> dm('now', tz='US/Pacific')
<Arrow [2016-01-25T17:01:18.456882-08:00]>
>>>

• v1.4.3 - Floats are now supported for days, hours, and seconds units. Example now-2.5d, now-3.2h. Any other unit other than days, hours, or seconds that is a float will be converted to an int and floored due to the datetime() module not being able to handle them.

python tests.py

Happy date math'ing!