radar 0.2

Basic usage

>>> import radar
>>> radar.random_datetime()
datetime.datetime(2013, 5, 24, 16, 54, 52)

Specify date range

You may pass datetime.datetime or datetime.date objects:

>>> import datetime
>>> import radar
>>> radar.random_date(
>>>     start = datetime.datetime(year=2000, month=5, day=24),
>>>     stop = datetime.datetime(year=2013, month=5, day=24)
>>> )
datetime.date(2012, 12, 31)

You may also pass strings:

>>> radar.random_datetime(start='2012-05-24T00:00:00', stop='2013-05-24T23:59:59')
datetime.datetime(2013, 4, 18, 17, 54, 6)

Generate random time

>>> radar.random_time(start='2012-01-01T00:00:00', stop='2012-01-01T23:59:59')
datetime.time(11, 33, 59)

Advanced usage

When strings are passed, by default radar uses python-dateutil package to parse dates. Date parser of the dateutil package is quite heavy, althogh is extremely smart. As an alternative, radar comes with own parser radar.utils.parse, which is much lighter (about 5 times faster compared to dateutil).

Using built-in parser:

>>> radar.random_datetime(start='2012-05-24T00:00:00', stop='2013-05-24T23:59:59', parse=radar.utils.parse)
datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 10, 15, 43, 40)

Built-in parser parses the dates using formats specified in radar.defaults.DATE_FORMATS:

>>> start = radar.utils.parse('2012-01-01')
datetime.datetime(2012, 1, 1, 0, 0)
>>> stop = radar.utils.parse('2013-01-01')
datetime.datetime(2013, 1, 1, 0, 0)

If you want to add more formats, define your own formats and feed them to built-in parser:

>>> MY_DATE_FORMATS = (
>>>     "%d-%m-%YT%H:%M:%S",
>>>     "%d-%m-%Y",
>>> )
>>>
>>> def my_parse(timestamp):
>>>     return radar.utils.parse(timestamp, formats=MY_DATE_FORMATS)
>>>
>>> radar.random_datetime(start='24-05-2012T00:00:00', stop='24-05-2013T23:59:59', parse=my_parse)
datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 10, 15, 43, 40)

General notes

If you expect to have really weird date formats when generating random dates from strings, you might want to consider installing wonderful python-dateutil package.

When generating thousands of objects (using dateutil or built-in parser), you’re advised to pass date ranges as datetime.datetime or datetime.date objects, rather than passing strings (parsing costs time).

A good example:

>>> start = radar.utils.parse('2000-01-01')
>>> stop = radar.utils.parse('2013-12-31')
>>> for i in xrange(1000000):
>>>     radar.random_datetime(start=start, stop=stop)

See https://bitbucket.org/barseghyanartur/radar/src (example) directory for benchmarks and more examples.