convert datetime string to datetime

Question

I know questions like these get asked all the time, but my specific problem doesn't seem to come up (at least I can't find it).

So my problem is like this. I have a MySQL database which has lots of data in it, with one column being full of dates. When I pull these dates, I automatically store them into a list which works great.

But, I also have to format the dates to calculate with. For instance, if I work on one of the dates I may need to extract just the month number. Having imported datetime, I would have imagined it was simple with strftime, but it wasn't. The problem is that they are stored in a string format (list is called last_shipped).

The dates come into the list according to this format:

((datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 30, 0, 0),),)

So when I try and use strftime I get the error

TypeError: descriptor 'strftime' requires a 'datetime.date' object but received a 'str'

My question is, how do I convert a list full of these to a list of workable datetime objects?

Thanks in advance

EDIT:

I am using MySQLdb. An example of the code I have tried that produces the error above is:

z = datetime.datetime.strftime(gr, '%m')

In this case z is the datetime string I mentioned above.

"So when I try and use strftime". Show us what you tried, please — TerryA
– TerryA, Commented Nov 13, 2013 at 6:01
strftime is for creating strings; you want strptime to parse strings (and create datetime objects from the strings). — Tim Peters
– Tim Peters, Commented Nov 13, 2013 at 6:02

KGo · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-13 06:23:55Z

1

This will help you:

time.strptime(string[, format])

Parse a string representing a time according to a format. The return value is a struct_time as returned by gmtime() or localtime().

time.strftime(format[, t])

Convert a tuple or struct_time representing a time as returned by gmtime() or localtime() to a string as specified by the format argument.

answered Nov 13, 2013 at 6:23

KGo

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1 Comment

Xtremesupremacy3 Over a year ago

I've just used strptime and works a treat. Thanks for saving my early baldness. Can't believe I missed it, the price for being a newbie

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