Display elapsed time in human readable format

elapsed_time.py

import time

###############################################
# Returns elapsed time dynamically formatted  #
# to accomodate days, hours, minutes, seconds #
###############################################
def elapsed_time(start,end):
    # For use with time.time() values as start and end
    units = [" days "," hours "," minutes ", " seconds"]
    delta = end - start 
    sec = "{:.3f}".format(delta % 60)  # Format seconds to 3 decimals
    minutes = str(int(delta // 60 % 60))
    hours = str(int(delta // 3600 % 24))
    days = str(int(delta // 86400))
    time_val = [days,hours,minutes,sec]
    time_passed = ""
    for i in range(0,4):
        if time_val[i] != '0': time_passed = time_passed + time_val[i]+units[i]
    return time_passed
    
start_time = time.time()
# Do something long here...
end_time = time.time()
print "Elapsed time:  ", elapsed_time(start_time,finish_time)