Python - Iterating through a range of dates

In this article, we will discuss how to iterate DateTime through a range of dates.

Using loop and timedelta to Iterate through a range of dates

Timedelta is used to get the dates and loop is to iterate the date from the start date to end date

Syntax: delta = datetime.timedelta(days=1)

Example: Python code to display the dates from 2021 - Feb 1^st to 2021 - March 1^st

# import datetime module
import datetime

# consider the start date as 2021-february 1 st
start_date = datetime.date(2021, 2, 1)

# consider the end date as 2021-march 1 st
end_date = datetime.date(2021, 3, 1)

# delta time
delta = datetime.timedelta(days=1)

# iterate over range of dates
while (start_date <= end_date):
    print(start_date, end="\n")
    start_date += delta

Output:

2021-02-01
2021-02-02
2021-02-03
2021-02-04
2021-02-05
2021-02-06
2021-02-07
2021-02-08
2021-02-09
2021-02-10
2021-02-11
2021-02-12
2021-02-13
2021-02-14
2021-02-15
2021-02-16
2021-02-17
2021-02-18
2021-02-19
2021-02-20
2021-02-21
2021-02-22
2021-02-23
2021-02-24
2021-02-25
2021-02-26
2021-02-27
2021-02-28
2021-03-01

Using the dateutil library to Iterate through a range of dates

Here we are using the dateutil built-in library of Python to iterate through the given range of dates.

Syntax: rrule( frequency )

Where frequency can be DAILY/MONTHLY/ANNUALLY.

Example:

# importing the required lib
from datetime import date
from dateutil.rrule import rrule, DAILY

# initializing the start and end date
start_date = date(2022, 9, 1)
end_date = date(2022, 9, 11)

# iterating over the dates
for d in rrule(DAILY, dtstart=start_date, until=end_date):
    print(d.strftime("%Y-%m-%d"))

Output:

2022-09-01
2022-09-02
2022-09-03
2022-09-04
2022-09-05
2022-09-06
2022-09-07
2022-09-08
2022-09-09
2022-09-10
2022-09-11

Using pandas to Iterate through a range of dates

We can use the date_range() function method that is available in pandas. It is used to return a fixed frequency DatetimeIndex.

Syntax: pandas.date_range(start, end)

Parameter:

• start is the starting date
• end is the ending date

We can iterate to get the date using date() function.

Example:

# import pandas module
import pandas as pd

# specify the start date is 2021 jan 1 st
# specify the end date is 2021 feb 1 st
a = pd.date_range(start='1/1/2021', end='2/1/2021')

# display only date using date() function
for i in a:
    print(i.date())

Output:

2021-01-01
2021-01-02
2021-01-03
2021-01-04
2021-01-05
2021-01-06
2021-01-07
2021-01-08
2021-01-09
2021-01-10
2021-01-11
2021-01-12
2021-01-13
2021-01-14
2021-01-15
2021-01-16
2021-01-17
2021-01-18
2021-01-19
2021-01-20
2021-01-21
2021-01-22
2021-01-23
2021-01-24
2021-01-25
2021-01-26
2021-01-27
2021-01-28
2021-01-29
2021-01-30
2021-01-31
2021-02-01