Python: how I import the datetime module

Python’s datetime module risks a whole bunch of name confusion:

• It contains a class also called datetime. When you read the word datetime, you can’t be sure it’s the module or the class.
• It contains a time class. This can be confused with the time module, or the time module’s time() function.
• It contains a class called timezone. In a Django project this can be confused with the django.utils.timezone module.

For these reasons, I use this import idiom and recommend you do too:

import datetime as dt

Rather than any of:

import datetime

from datetime import datetime  # or time, timezone

Then in your code, dt.datetime, dt.time, and dt.timezone will be unambiguous.

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Tags: django, python