datetime command line argument in python 2.4

Question

I want to pass a datetime value into my python script on the command line. My first idea was to use optparse and pass the value in as a string, then use datetime.strptime to convert it to a datetime. This works fine on my machine (python 2.6), but I also need to run this script on machines that are running python 2.4, which doesn't have datetime.strptime.

How can I pass the datetime value to the script in python 2.4?

Here's the code I'm using in 2.6:

parser = optparse.OptionParser()
parser.add_option("-m", "--max_timestamp", dest="max_timestamp",
                  help="only aggregate items older than MAX_TIMESTAMP", 
                  metavar="MAX_TIMESTAMP(YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MM)")
options,args = parser.parse_args()
if options.max_timestamp:
    # Try parsing the date argument
    try:
        max_timestamp = datetime.datetime.strptime(options.max_timestamp, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M")
    except:
        print "Error parsing date input:",sys.exc_info()
        sys.exit(1)

Alex Martelli · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-11 21:23:10Z

17

Go by way of the time module, which did already have strptime in 2.4:

>>> import time
>>> t = time.strptime("2010-02-02 7:31", "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M")
>>> t
(2010, 2, 2, 7, 31, 0, 1, 33, -1)
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime(*t[:6])
datetime.datetime(2010, 2, 2, 7, 31)

answered Mar 11, 2010 at 21:23

Alex Martelli

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3 Comments

Ike Walker Over a year ago

This is perfect. I had noticed time.strptime but I'm new to python and didn't realize how easy it is to convert the time to a datetime using slice notation. Thanks!

Stephen Johnson Over a year ago

In the meantime, the python library has been updated so you don't need to use time. Now, just use: datetime.datetime.strptime()

Alex Martelli Over a year ago

@StephenJohnson, yes, unless of course you need to support obsolete versions of Python as the OP (in his Q 5+ years ago) very specifically said he did -- in which case, knowing how to do things in those ancient versions is still pretty important:-).

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