Arrow is a Python module that offers a smooth, sensible way of creating, maniuplating, formatting and converting dates and times. Arrow is simple, lightweight and heavily inspired by moment.js and requests.

Python's standard library and some other low-level modules offer complete functionality but don't work very well from a usability perpsective:

• Too many modules: datetime, time, calendar, dateutil, pytz
• Time zones and timestamp conversions are verbose and error-prone
• Time zones are explicit, naievete is the norm
• Gaps in functionality: ISO-8601 parsing, timespans, humanization

• Implements the datetime iterface
• TZ-aware & UTC by default
• Concise, intelligent interface for creation
• Attribute manipulation, plural names
• Rich parsing & formatting options
• Timezone conversion
• Simple timestamp handling
• Time spans, floors and ceilings
• Humanization

$ pip install arrow

>>> import arrow
>>> utc = arrow.get()
>>> utc
<Arrow [2013-05-07T03:56:38.560988+00:00]>
>>> utc.hours -=1
>>> utc
<Arrow [2013-05-07T02:56:38.560988+00:00]>
>>> local = utc.to('US/Pacific')
>>> local
<Arrow [2013-05-06T19:56:38.560988-07:00]>
>>> local.timestamp
1367895398
>>> local.format('YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss ZZ')
'2013-05-06 19:56:38 -07:00'

• 0.2.0

  • Reimplemented as datetime replacement
  • Added date parsing
  • Added date formatting
  • Added floor, ceil and span methods
  • Added datetime methods for drop-in replacement
  • Added clone method
  • Added get, now and utcnow API methods

• 0.1.6

  • Added humanized time deltas
  • Fixed numerous issues with conversions related to daylight savings time
  • Fixed some inconsistencies in time zone names
  • str uses ISO formatting
  • eq implemented for basic comparison between Arrow objects

• 0.1.5

  • Started tracking changes
  • Added parsing of ISO-formatted time zone offsets (e.g. '+02:30', '-05:00')
  • Fixed some incorrect timestamps with delta / olson time zones
  • Fixed formatting of UTC offsets in TimeStamp's str method