Model Iterator for Date Ranges?

Question

Is there a way to programmatically go through a range of dates, select features that were present on each date, and create a shapefile with each date's features?

I have a single shapefile with a [START_DATE] and an [END_DATE] field, both formatted as Date fields.

I'm looking for a way to go through a series of dates (say, January 1 through today) and create a series of daily snapshots that will show which features were present on those dates. The kicker is that I need this to be done in a geoprocessing environment because I'd then like to turn around and create Directional Distribution polygons for each date (otherwise I could just turn on the Time Slider and be satisfied with the original SHP).

I'm trying to do this in Modelbuilder, but the available Iterators don't seem to include date range functionality.

Ideas?

JeffPickles · Answer

After sleeping on it, it would be better to have all of the dates in one shapefile, after all. I didn't realize the Directional Distribution tool can run seperate incarnations based on a single field. So if there were a way to put all of the individual dates into one shapefile, that would be ideal. Sorry for the run-around.

DarrenWiens2 · Answer

Cool. Change it to:

end = datetime.today()

...or possibly datetime.datetime.today()

JeffPickles · Answer

Excellent. Worked like a charm. Thanks much!

Dumb question: 
How do I alter this to use today's date as end?

Like so?: # Fun stuff
start = datetime.datetime.strptime(start,"%m/%d/%Y")
end = time.strftime(end,"%m/%d/%Y")