CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-2.7
arno_v
arno_v

Reputation: 20347

Converting utc time string to datetime object

I'm using the Paypal API and I get back a timestamp in the following format. I try to parse this to a datetime object using strptime, but I get the following error:

(Pdb) datetime.strptime('2012-03-01T10:00:00Z','%Y-%M-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')
*** error: redefinition of group name 'M' as group 5; was group 2

Also, as this format is supposed to be quite a standard format isn't there a function available for this?

EDIT:

Ok seems to be a typo. First %M should be %m

Upvotes: 39

Views: 95548

Answers (4)

Matt Alcock
Matt Alcock

Reputation: 12901

The parser from dateutil is your friend.

You'll have to pip install dateutil but you've save bags and bags of date conversion code:

pip install python-dateutil

You can use it like this.

from dateutil import parser
ds = '2012-03-01T10:00:00Z' # or any date sting of differing formats.
date = parser.parse(ds)

You'll find you can deal with almost any date string formats with this parser and you'll get a nice standard python date back

Upvotes: 71

Fred Foo
Fred Foo

Reputation: 363817

The problem is that you use %M twice. Use %m for the months:

>>> datetime.strptime('2012-03-01T10:00:00Z','%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')
datetime.datetime(2012, 3, 1, 10, 0)

Upvotes: 11

istruble
istruble

Reputation: 13722

You have a typo. %M is used twice. You meant to use %m for the month. From the docs:

%m  Month as a decimal number [01,12].   
%M  Minute as a decimal number [00,59].

Upvotes: 3

jcollado
jcollado

Reputation: 40424

Looks like you're mixing %M (minute) and %m (month).

Upvotes: 36

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