Discord.py Time Calculation and conversion - time

Question

So, I recently decided to add a timer command to my discord bot, which takes a specific time and counts down until then. I managed to work that in using something super janky and cobbled together.
This is my code currently:
async def timer(ctx, days, hours, minutes, seconds):
try:
hoursint = int(hours)
daysint = int(days)
minutesint = int(minutes)
secondint = int(seconds)
if daysint < 0:
await ctx.send("I dont think im allowed to do negatives")
raise BaseException
elif hoursint < 0:
await ctx.send("I dont think im allowed to do negatives")
raise BaseException
elif minutesint < 0:
await ctx.send("I dont think im allowed to do negatives")
raise BaseException
elif secondint < 0:
await ctx.send("I dont think im allowed to do negatives")
raise BaseException
elif secondint <= 0 and hoursint <= 0 and daysint <= 0 and minutesint <= 0:
await ctx.send("That's not a time dummy!")
raise BaseException
if secondint >= 60:
secondint = secondint - 60
minutesint += 1
if minutesint >= 60:
minutesint = minutesint - 60
hoursint +=1
if hoursint >= 24:
hoursint = hoursint - 24
daysint += 1
message = await ctx.send("Timer: {seconds}")
if daysint > 0 and hoursint == 0:
hoursint = 23
daysint -= 1
minutesint = 60
secondint = 60
if hoursint > 0 and minutesint == 0:
minutesint = 60
secondint = 60
hoursint -= 1
if secondint == 0 and minutesint > 0:
secondint = 60
minutesint -= 1
while True:
if secondint > 0:
secondint -= 1
if secondint <= 0 and minutesint > 0:
minutesint -=1
secondint = 60
if minutesint <= 0 and hoursint > 0:
hoursint -= 1
minutesint = 60
if hoursint <= 0 and daysint > 0:
daysint -= 1
hoursint = 24
if secondint == 0 and minutesint == 0 and hoursint == 0 and daysint == 0:
await message.edit(content="Ended!")
break
await message.edit(content=f"**Timer: {daysint}:{hoursint}:{minutesint}:{secondint}**")
await asyncio.sleep(1)
await ctx.send(f"{ctx.author.mention} Your countdown Has ended!")
except ValueError:
await ctx.send("Must be a number!")
However, I want to make this a little more intuitive/user friendly. At the moment, it takes inputs only in the "d h m s" format, but I would like it to take a user's date input, I.E "22-2-22, 11:30pm IST" or something similar and set a timer from the current time until that given time.
I haven't been able to figure this out myself and would appreciate any help!

Answer 1

You should use datetime.strptime to work with a datetime object, for which you will have to import from datetime import datetime.
To get all of the user input as string use * before the argument, so it will get the rest of the argument:
async def timer(ctx, *, time):
then you can use datetime.strptime with your format. You can find available "variables" here. In your example, to be able to input 22-02-22, 11:30PM the format would be "%y-%m-%d, %I:%M%p". You can also support multiple formats using try and except:
async def timer(ctx, *, time):
try:
datetime_object = datetime.strptime(time, "%y-%m-%d, %I:%M%p")
except ValueError:
try:
datetime_object = datetime.strptime(time, "second format")
except ValueError:
# And so on
Now you have the time at which the timer finishes, but as it looks like, you want to get how long it takes for it to finish, so you can just subtract the time it ends by the current time:
time_until_timer_end = datetime_object - datetime.now()
and then you can access the days or seconds(which you can then convert to hours) until the timer finishes:
seconds = time_until_timer_end.seconds
total_seconds = time_until_timer_end.total_seconds()
days = time_until_timer_end.days