API request, conversion from 12-hour to 24-hour format and conversion from UTC to MET time

Question

The script calls the sunrise-sunset API to get one of the possible values, then converts it to 24-Hour format and MET time (as the times from the API are 12-hour and UTC). At the end, it joins the list to a string and prints it. I know this isn't commented very well, but are there any significant flaws in this code? I neither have any experience with Python nor with programming in general, this is just for a personal project and Python seemed to be the best way to do this, so I'm open for any advice and help.

import json
import urllib.request as request


def apiGetList(key):
    """ Function twilightApiGetList(key):
        Calls the sunrise-sunset api to return the value of a given key
        Possible keys: sunrise, sunset, solar_noon, day_length, civil_twilight_begin, civil_twilight_end,
        nautical_twilight_begin, nautical_twilight_end, astronomical_twilight_begin, astronomical_twilight_end
        All times returned are a list in 12-hour format, UTC time
    """
    with request.urlopen('https://api.sunrise-sunset.org/json?lat=44.244622&lng=-7.768863&date=today') as response:
        if response.getcode() == 200:
            source = response.read()
            data = json.loads(source)
            out = list(f"{data['results'][key]}")
            if len(out) == 10:
                out.insert(0, '0')
            else:
                pass
            return(out)
        else:
            print("Not successful")
            return


def convert12To24(lst):
    """ Function convert12To24(lst):
        Converts from 12-hour format to 24-hour format, input and output types are lists
    """
    if lst[9] == "A" and "".join(lst[0:2]) == "12":
        del lst[8:12]
        lst[0:2] = '00'
    elif lst[9] == "A":
        del lst[8:12]
    elif lst[9] == "P" and "".join(lst[0:2]) == "12":
        del lst[8:12]
    else:
        del lst[8:12]
        lst[0:2] = str(int("".join(lst[0:2])) + 12)
    return(lst)


def convertUtcToMet(time):
    """ Function convertUtcToMet(time):
        Converts from UTC time to MET time by adding two hours. Input and output time is in 24-hour format, type is a list
    """
    if int("".join(time[0:2])) < 8:
        time[0:2] = str(int("".join(time[0:2])) + 2)
        time.insert(0, '0')
    elif "".join(time[0:2]) == '22':
        time[0:2] = '00'
    elif "".join(time[0:2]) == '23':
        time[0:2] = '01'
    else:
        time[0:2] = str(int("".join(time[0:2])) + 2)
    return(time)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    ctb = apiGetList("civil_twilight_begin")
    cte = apiGetList("civil_twilight_end")

    print("".join(convertUtcToMet(convert12To24(ctb))))
    print("".join(convertUtcToMet(convert12To24(cte))))

Answer 1

Welcome to CodeReview! This is a great first question.

Do not do your own time math

...nor your own formatting when possible. Tell Python to do it for you. Some example code:

from dataclasses import dataclass
from datetime import timedelta, datetime, timezone
import requests, pytz


@dataclass(frozen=True)
class DayInfo:
    day_length: timedelta
    sunrise: datetime
    sunset: datetime
    solar_noon: datetime
    civil_twilight_begin: datetime
    civil_twilight_end: datetime
    nautical_twilight_begin: datetime
    nautical_twilight_end: datetime
    astronomical_twilight_begin: datetime
    astronomical_twilight_end: datetime

    @classmethod
    def get(cls, lat: float, long: float, tz: timezone) -> 'DayInfo':
        """ Function twilightApiGetList(key):
            Calls the sunrise-sunset api to return the value of a given key
            All times returned are in the provided timezone.
        """
        with requests.get(
            'https://api.sunrise-sunset.org/json',
            params={
                'lat': lat,
                'lng': long,
                'date': 'today',  # technically this can be omitted
                'formatted': 0,   # we want ISO8601 ("machine-readable")
            },
        ) as response:
            response.raise_for_status()
            data = response.json()

        if data['status'] != 'OK':
            raise requests.HTTPError(data['status'], response=response)
        results = data['results']

        return cls(
            day_length=timedelta(seconds=int(results['day_length'])),
            **{
                k: datetime.fromisoformat(results[k]).astimezone(tz)
                for k in (
                    'sunrise',
                    'sunset',
                    'solar_noon',
                    'civil_twilight_begin',
                    'civil_twilight_end',
                    'nautical_twilight_begin',
                    'nautical_twilight_end',
                    'astronomical_twilight_begin',
                    'astronomical_twilight_end',
                )
            },
        )


if __name__ == "__main__":
    day_info = DayInfo.get(44.244622, -7.768863, pytz.timezone('MET'))
    print(f'{day_info.civil_twilight_begin:%H:%m}')
    print(f'{day_info.civil_twilight_end:%H:%m}')

Notes:

• You didn't parameterize the right things. Parameters should be coordinates and timezone.
• Ask the API for machine-readable (ISO) dates.
• Might as well parse everything from the API.
• Do not use string manipulation to get your desired format. What is shown is string interpolation with standard Python time fields.
• Use requests - it has a lot of niceties that make this easier.
• Only issue one call to the API, returning an object that has both of the keys you care about. If you're never, ever going to use the other keys, you can delete them from this class, but they're inexpensive to generate - compared to a second HTTP call, which is much more expensive.