[Tutor] Is there a method like this already?

[Alan Gauld]

> Is there a method in Python like this already:
> #This program calculates how many days it has been from one day to 
> the other.

Look at the datetime module it has methods for getting differences in
daes/times etc.

> def first_date():
>    1y = int(raw_input("Enter the year of the first date: "))
>    1m = int(raw_input("Enter the month of the first date: "))
>    1d = int(raw_input("Enter the day of the first date: "))

Doesn't return anything so the data is lost as soon as
you exit the function. You need to return the data(as a tuple?)
so you can store it in a variable:

      return (1y,1m,1d)

date1 = first_date()

> def second_date():
>     2y = int(raw_input("Enter the year of the second date: "))
etc

And this does exactly the same as first_date so you don't need it.
Rename first_date to get_date(), remove the ones, and just call it 
twice:

def get_date():
    y = int(raw_input("Enter the year: "))
    m = int(raw_input("Enter the month: "))
    d = int(raw_input("Enter the day: "))
    return (y,m,d)

print "For the first date"
date1 = get_date()
print "For the second date"
date2 = get_date()

> def calculate_days(year, month, day):

And this would dake the two dates as arguments and return
a number of dats:

def calculate_days(firstDate, secondDate):
      # use datetime module here....

HTH

Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld