How to convert time seconds to h:m:s format in Python?

In Python, while working on date and time, converting time seconds to h:m:s (Hours: Minutes: Seconds) format can be done using simple arithmetic operations and built-in modules like datetime and time. The following are several ways to convert time seconds to h:m:s format.

• Using arithmetic operations (Naive Method)
• Using the timedelta class of the datetime module
• Using time.strftime() with time.gmtime()

Using arithmetic operations (Naive method)

This is the simplest way to convert seconds into time in H:M:S format. We use basic mathematical operations like division and modulo to break the total number of seconds into hours, minutes, and remaining seconds.

We extract hours by dividing the total seconds by 3600 (since 1 hour = 3600 seconds), then minutes by dividing the remaining seconds by 60 (1 minute = 60 seconds), and the final remaining seconds are taken using the modulo operation.

Example

The following program demonstrates the conversion of time seconds (5000000) to Hours: Minutes: Seconds format by using basic arithmetic operations like division (//) and modulo (%).

seconds = int(input("Enter the number of seconds:"))
seconds = seconds % (24 * 3600)
hour = seconds // 3600
seconds %= 3600
minutes = seconds // 60
seconds %= 60
print("%d:%02d:%02d" % (hour, minutes, seconds))

Following is the output of the above code:

Enter the number of seconds:5000000
20:53:20

Using the timedelta class of the datetime module

The timedelta class in Python's datetime module is used to represent the duration or difference between two dates or times. It breaks the time into days, hours, minutes, and seconds. By passing the total number of seconds to timedelta, we can easily convert it into a readable H:M:S format.

Syntax

The syntax of the timedelta() function is as follows:

datetime.timedelta(days=0, seconds=0, microseconds=0, milliseconds=0, minutes=0, hours=0, weeks=0)

To convert time in seconds to H:M:S format, we only need to provide the seconds parameter.

Example

In the following program, we converted time seconds to H: M: S format by passing the total number of seconds to the timedelta() function.

import datetime
timedelta_obj = datetime.timedelta(seconds=7896354)
print("Time in H: M: S format: ",timedelta_obj)

Following is the output of the above code:

Time in H M S format:  91 days, 9:25:54

Using time.strftime() with time.gmtime()

The gmtime() method from the time module is used here to convert given seconds into a struct_time (elapsed since epoch, in the form of an object), then we use the strftime() method to format this structure into an H:M:S string.

This method works only within a 24-hour cycle. If the total seconds exceed 86400 (24 hours), it wraps around and restarts from 00:00:00.

Example

In this example, we convert the total seconds (123455) into a structured time object using gmtime(). Then, we use strftime("%H:%M:%S") to get a string showing only hours, minutes, and seconds, ignoring days.

import time
seconds = 123455
time_obj = time.gmtime(seconds)
resultant_time = time.strftime("%H:%M:%S",time_obj)
print("Time in H M S format",resultant_time)

Following is the output of the above code:

Time in H M S format 10:17:35