Let's say I have a string: "10/12/13" and "10/15/13", how can I convert them into date objects so that I can compare the dates? For example to see which date is before or after.
7 Answers
Use datetime.datetime.strptime:
>>> from datetime import datetime as dt
>>> a = dt.strptime("10/12/13", "%m/%d/%y")
>>> b = dt.strptime("10/15/13", "%m/%d/%y")
>>> a > b
False
>>> a < b
True
>>>
3 Comments
LazerSharks
for some reason %y (lower case y) gave me "Unconverted data remains " error, while %Y (upper case Y) worked. Why?
@Gnuey - The datetime format strings are case-sensitive.
%Y is not the same as %y. %Y tells Python to match a 4-digit year such as 2014. %y however matches a 2-digit year such as 14 for the year 2014. You must be trying to match a 4-digit year with the 2-digit %y specifier. Here is a reference on the available format specifiers: docs.python.org/2/library/…LazerSharks
Ahh I see. Didn't catch that very valuable detail of "!4"vs"2014". Thank you for the answer and many thanks for the reference!
If you like to use the dateutil and its parser:
from dateutil.parser import parse
date1 = parse('10/12/13')
date2 = parse('10/15/13')
print date1 - date2
print date2 > date2
1 Comment
Mohammed Alokshiya
pip install python-dateutil
Here's one solution using datetime.datetime.strptime:
>>> date1 = datetime.datetime.strptime('10/12/13', '%m/%d/%y')
>>> date2 = datetime.datetime.strptime('10/15/13', '%m/%d/%y')
>>> date1 < date2
True
>>> date1 > date2
False
2 Comments
LazerSharks
for some reason %y (lower case y) gave me "Unconverted data remains " error, while %Y (upper case Y) worked. Why?
aIKid
%y works with year without centuries - as a zero padded number (01, 02, 03.. and so on). While %Yworks with year with century (decimal) number: (1999, 1979). What's your data?Use datetime.datetime.strptime.
from datetime import datetime
a = datetime.strptime('10/12/13', '%m/%d/%y')
b = datetime.strptime('10/15/13', '%m/%d/%y')
print 'a' if a > b else 'b' if b > a else 'tie'
Comments
I know this post is 7 years old, but wanted to say that you can compare two date strings without converting them to dates
>>> "10/12/13" > "10/15/13"
False
>>> "10/12/13" < "10/15/13"
True
>>> "10/12/13" == "10/15/13"
False
If there is anything wrong with this approach I would love for someone to tell me.
2 Comments
skyfail
Please refer to this answer for why this is a bad way to compare date strings. stackoverflow.com/a/31350422/4589310
Jeyekomon
A counterexample:
'10/15/13' > '10/12/14' but October 15, 2013 was before October 12, 2014.The simplest way to accomplish this is using Pandas
import pandas as pd
d1=pd.to_datetime("10/12/13")
d2=pd.to_datetime("10/12/15")
d1>d2
>>False
1 Comment
luksfarris
Even though this is a valid way, it's not the simplest
import datetime
d1="10/12/13"
d2="10/15/13"
date = d1.split('/')
d1=datetime.datetime(int(date[2]),int(date[1]),int(date[0]))
date = d2.split('/')
d2=datetime.datetime(int(date[2]),int(date[1]),int(date[0]))
if d1 > d2 :
## Code
today = datetime.datetime.today()
if d1 > today :
## code
1 Comment
Gangula
Please add more details to your answer, maybe a brief explanation of what the code does would help.
dateutil10/15/13?