Generate a random date between two other dates

Question

How would I generate a random date that has to be between two other given dates?

The function's signature should something like this:

randomDate("1/1/2008 1:30 PM", "1/1/2009 4:50 AM", 0.34)
                  ^                       ^          ^

           date generated has   date generated has a random number
           to be after this     to be before this

and would return a date such as: 2/4/2008 7:20 PM

Answer 1

Here is an answer to the literal meaning of the title rather than the body of this question:

import time
import datetime
import random

def date_to_timestamp(d) :
  return int(time.mktime(d.timetuple()))

def randomDate(start, end):
  """Get a random date between two dates"""

  stime = date_to_timestamp(start)
  etime = date_to_timestamp(end)

  ptime = stime + random.random() * (etime - stime)

  return datetime.date.fromtimestamp(ptime)

This code is based loosely on the accepted answer.

Answer 2

Just to add another one:

datestring = datetime.datetime.strftime(datetime.datetime( \
    random.randint(2000, 2015), \
    random.randint(1, 12), \
    random.randint(1, 28), \
    random.randrange(23), \
    random.randrange(59), \
    random.randrange(59), \
    random.randrange(1000000)), '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

The day handling needs some considerations. With 28 you are on the secure site.

Answer 3

Based on the answer by mouviciel, here is a vectorized solution using numpy. Convert the start and end dates to ints, generate an array of random numbers between them, and convert the whole array back to dates.

import time
import datetime
import numpy as np

n_rows = 10

start_time = "01/12/2011"
end_time = "05/08/2017"

date2int = lambda s: time.mktime(datetime.datetime.strptime(s,"%d/%m/%Y").timetuple())
int2date = lambda s: datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(s).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

start_time = date2int(start_time)
end_time = date2int(end_time)

random_ints = np.random.randint(low=start_time, high=end_time, size=(n_rows,1))
random_dates = np.apply_along_axis(int2date, 1, random_ints).reshape(n_rows,1)

print random_dates

Answer 4

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

"""Create random datetime object."""

from datetime import datetime
import random


def create_random_datetime(from_date, to_date, rand_type='uniform'):
    """
    Create random date within timeframe.

    Parameters
    ----------
    from_date : datetime object
    to_date : datetime object
    rand_type : {'uniform'}

    Examples
    --------
    >>> random.seed(28041990)
    >>> create_random_datetime(datetime(1990, 4, 28), datetime(2000, 12, 31))
    datetime.datetime(1998, 12, 13, 23, 38, 0, 121628)
    >>> create_random_datetime(datetime(1990, 4, 28), datetime(2000, 12, 31))
    datetime.datetime(2000, 3, 19, 19, 24, 31, 193940)
    """
    delta = to_date - from_date
    if rand_type == 'uniform':
        rand = random.random()
    else:
        raise NotImplementedError('Unknown random mode \'{}\''
                                  .format(rand_type))
    return from_date + rand * delta


if __name__ == '__main__':
    import doctest
    doctest.testmod()

Answer 5

from random import randrange
from datetime import timedelta

def random_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 lines calculation.

example run:

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

Answer 6

Here's a solution modified from emyller's approach which returns an array of random dates at any resolution

import numpy as np

def random_dates(start, end, size=1, resolution='s'):
    """
    Returns an array of random dates in the interval [start, end]. Valid 
    resolution arguments are numpy date/time units, as documented at: 
        https://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-dev/reference/arrays.datetime.html
    """
    start, end = np.datetime64(start), np.datetime64(end)
    delta = (end-start).astype('timedelta64[{}]'.format(resolution))
    delta_mat = np.random.randint(0, delta.astype('int'), size)
    return start + delta_mat.astype('timedelta64[{}]'.format(resolution))

Part of what's nice about this approach is that np.datetime64 is really good at coercing things to dates, so you can specify your start/end dates as strings, datetimes, pandas timestamps... pretty much anything will work.