Generate A Random Date Between Two Other Dates

How would I generate a random date that has to be between two other given dates? The function's signature should be something like this: random_date('1/1/2008 1:30 PM', '1/1/2009 4

Solution 1:

Convert both strings to timestamps (in your chosen resolution, e.g. milliseconds, seconds, hours, days, whatever), subtract the earlier from the later, multiply your random number (assuming it is distributed in the range [0, 1]) with that difference, and add again to the earlier one. Convert the timestamp back to date string and you have a random time in that range.

Python example (output is almost in the format you specified, other than 0 padding - blame the American time format conventions):

import random
import time
    
defstr_time_prop(start, end, time_format, prop):
    """Get a time at a proportion of a range of two formatted times.

    start and end should be strings specifying times formatted in the
    given format (strftime-style), giving an interval [start, end].
    prop specifies how a proportion of the interval to be taken after
    start.  The returned time will be in the specified format.
    """

    stime = time.mktime(time.strptime(start, time_format))
    etime = time.mktime(time.strptime(end, time_format))

    ptime = stime + prop * (etime - stime)

    return time.strftime(time_format, time.localtime(ptime))


defrandom_date(start, end, prop):
    return str_time_prop(start, end, '%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p', prop)
    
print(random_date("1/1/2008 1:30 PM", "1/1/2009 4:50 AM", random.random()))

Solution 2:

from random import randrange
from datetime import timedelta

defrandom_date(start, end):
    """
    This function will return a random datetime between two datetime 
    objects.
    """
    delta = end - start
    int_delta = (delta.days * 24 * 60 * 60) + delta.seconds
    random_second = randrange(int_delta)
    return start + timedelta(seconds=random_second)

The precision is seconds. You can increase precision up to microseconds, or decrease to, say, half-hours, if you want. For that just change the last line's calculation.

example run:

from datetime import datetime

d1 = datetime.strptime('1/1/2008 1:30 PM', '%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p')
d2 = datetime.strptime('1/1/2009 4:50 AM', '%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p')

print(random_date(d1, d2))

output:

2008-12-04 01:50:17

Solution 3:

A tiny version.

import datetime
import random


defrandom_date(start, end):
    """Generate a random datetime between `start` and `end`"""return start + datetime.timedelta(
        # Get a random amount of seconds between `start` and `end`
        seconds=random.randint(0, int((end - start).total_seconds())),
    )

Note that both start and end arguments should be datetime objects. If you've got strings instead, it's fairly easy to convert. The other answers point to some ways to do so.

Solution 4:

Updated answer

It's even more simple using Faker.

Installation

pip install faker

Usage:

from faker import Faker
fake = Faker()

fake.date_between(start_date='today', end_date='+30y')
# datetime.date(2025, 3, 12)

fake.date_time_between(start_date='-30y', end_date='now')
# datetime.datetime(2007, 2, 28, 11, 28, 16)# Or if you need a more specific date boundaries, provide the start # and end dates explicitly.import datetime
start_date = datetime.date(year=2015, month=1, day=1)
fake.date_between(start_date=start_date, end_date='+30y')

Old answer

It's very simple using radar

Installation

pip install radar

Usage

import datetime

import radar 

# Generate random datetime (parsing dates from str values)
radar.random_datetime(start='2000-05-24', stop='2013-05-24T23:59:59')

# Generate random datetime from datetime.datetime values
radar.random_datetime(
    start = datetime.datetime(year=2000, month=5, day=24),
    stop = datetime.datetime(year=2013, month=5, day=24)
)

# Just render some random datetime. If no range is given, start defaults to # 1970-01-01 and stop defaults to datetime.datetime.now()
radar.random_datetime()

Solution 5:

This is a different approach - that sort of works..

from random import randint
import datetime

date=datetime.date(randint(2005,2025), randint(1,12),randint(1,28))

BETTER APPROACH

startdate=datetime.date(YYYY,MM,DD)
date=startdate+datetime.timedelta(randint(1,365))