Comparing datetimes of different formats in python

Question

I am trying to compare two dates in Python of different formats. Meaning, the "dates" can be of format "%d %H:%M:%S", "%H:%M:%S" or even "%M:%S". Initially i am working with datetimes of format "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S +0000 %Y". When i am trying to do as explained above i get the error:

ValueError: time data '5:37:52' does not match format '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S +0000 %Y'

Which indeed is a logical error to get.
But are there any method or built in function in python that can handle different datetime formats? Or even a workaround?

I am using Python 2.7.12.
Thank you in advance for any help!

You probably want the third-party dateutil library, which does generic parsing of date strings. — Daniel Roseman
– Daniel Roseman, Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 12:00
I presume 5:37:52 is just a time, so do you have some dates and times, and some just times? — doctorlove
– doctorlove, Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 12:00
Yes, i have some "times" which are just minutes and seconds, and some "dates" that are days, hours, minutes and seconds. — geirmash
– geirmash, Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 12:03

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:09:03Z

3

from dateutil.parser import parse
print( parse( "5:37:52" ) )
datetime.datetime(2017, 2, 6, 5, 37, 52)

As Daniel pointed out the dateutil library will parse dates in various formats, so you just need to pass all your date strings through it in order to get the datetime objects

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:09

CommunityBot

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answered Feb 6, 2017 at 12:13

Meghdeep Ray

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1 Comment

geirmash Over a year ago

Yes! Thank you! This works in my case. Also thank you Daniel Roseman for pointing this out!

Eric Duminil · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-06 12:13:51Z

1

You can use dateutil.parser.parse to parse your time/date strings :

from dateutil.parser import parse
parse("12 05:37:52")
# datetime.datetime(2017, 2, 12, 5, 37, 52)
parse("05:37:52")
# datetime.datetime(2017, 2, 6, 5, 37, 52)

answered Feb 6, 2017 at 12:13

Eric Duminil

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