Working with Dates

The bikram_sambat.date object is the cornerstone of handling dates in the Bikram Sambat calendar. It’s designed to feel familiar to Python’s built-in datetime.date, so you can get started quickly.

Creating a Date

Creating a new date object is as simple as providing the year, month, and day.

from bikram_sambat import date

# Create a specific date (New Year's Day 2081 BS)
new_year_2081 = date(2081, 1, 1)
print(f"New Year's Day 2081 BS: {new_year_2081}")
# >> New Year's Day 2081 BS: 2081-01-01

# Another example (a date in the middle of the year)
some_day = date(2080, 5, 15)
print(f"A specific day: {some_day}")
# >> A specific day: 2080-05-15

You can also get today’s date in the Bikram Sambat calendar using the today() class method.

from bikram_sambat import date

# Get today's date
today_bs = date.today()
print(f"Today's date in BS is: {today_bs}")
# >> Today's date in BS is: 2082-04-06

Accessing Date Components

Once you have a date object, you can easily access its components:

from bikram_sambat import date

d = date(2081, 4, 15)

print(f"Year: {d.year}")
# >> Year: 2081

print(f"Month: {d.month}")
# >> Month: 4

print(f"Day: {d.day}")
# >> Day: 15

Comparing Dates

You can compare two date objects using the standard comparison operators.

from bikram_sambat import date

date1 = date(2081, 1, 1)
date2 = date(2081, 1, 2)
date3 = date(2081, 1, 1)

print(f"{date1} < {date2}: {date1 < date2}")
# >> 2081-01-01 < 2081-01-02: True
print(f"{date1} == {date3}: {date1 == date3}")
# >> 2081-01-01 == 2081-01-01: True

Date Arithmetic

You can perform arithmetic on date objects using timedelta objects.

from bikram_sambat import date, timedelta

d = date(2081, 1, 1)
delta = timedelta(days=10)

future_date = d + delta
past_date = d - delta

print(f"10 days after {d} is {future_date}")
# >> 10 days after 2081-01-01 is 2081-01-11

print(f"10 days before {d} is {past_date}")
# >> 10 days before 2081-01-01 is 2080-12-21

You can also find the difference between two dates:

from bikram_sambat import date

date1 = date(2081, 1, 1)
date2 = date(2081, 1, 11)

diff = date2 - date1
print(f"The difference between {date1} and {date2} is {diff.days} days.")
# >> The difference between 2081-01-01 and 2081-01-11 is 10 days.

Converting to and from Gregorian Dates

See the Converting Between AD and BS section for more details.

Formatting Dates

See the Formatting and Parsing section for more details on how to format dates as strings.