Find yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's date in Python

When working with dates in Python, you often need to find yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's dates. Python's datetime module provides the timedelta class to easily calculate dates relative to the current date.

Basic Date Calculation

Here's how to find yesterday, today, and tomorrow using datetime.now() and timedelta ?

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

present = datetime.now()
yesterday = present - timedelta(1)
tomorrow = present + timedelta(1)

print("Yesterday was :")
print(yesterday.strftime('%d-%m-%Y'))
print("Today is :")
print(present.strftime('%d-%m-%Y'))
print("Tomorrow would be :")
print(tomorrow.strftime('%d-%m-%Y'))

Yesterday was :
05-04-2021
Today is :
06-04-2021
Tomorrow would be :
07-04-2021

Using date() for Date-Only Operations

If you only need dates without time information, use date.today() ?

from datetime import date, timedelta

today = date.today()
yesterday = today - timedelta(days=1)
tomorrow = today + timedelta(days=1)

print(f"Yesterday: {yesterday}")
print(f"Today: {today}")
print(f"Tomorrow: {tomorrow}")

Yesterday: 2021-04-05
Today: 2021-04-06
Tomorrow: 2021-04-07

Custom Date Formatting

You can format dates in various ways using strftime() ?

from datetime import date, timedelta

today = date.today()
yesterday = today - timedelta(days=1)
tomorrow = today + timedelta(days=1)

print(f"Yesterday: {yesterday.strftime('%B %d, %Y')}")
print(f"Today: {today.strftime('%A, %B %d, %Y')}")
print(f"Tomorrow: {tomorrow.strftime('%d/%m/%Y')}")

Yesterday: April 05, 2021
Today: Tuesday, April 06, 2021
Tomorrow: 07/04/2021

How It Works

• datetime.now() returns the current date and time

• date.today() returns only the current date without time

• timedelta(days=1) represents a duration of one day

• Adding timedelta moves forward in time, subtracting moves backward

• strftime() formats dates into readable strings using format codes

Conclusion

Use timedelta with datetime.now() or date.today() to calculate relative dates. The strftime() method allows flexible date formatting for display purposes.