Parsing date string form javascript to python

Question

I have a javascript date object, which i turn into a string, and send to my backend to parse using python.

here is an example of the javascript date string 'Mon Aug 18 2014 21:11:54 GMT+0200 (Centraleuropæisk sommertid)

I have made a python helper function to help parse the date.

def datetime_converter(datetime_str):
    return datetime.strptime(datetime_str, "%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z")

this should correctly parse the date according to this answer

i think the problem is that there is an extra text attached to the end (It's danish since I'm from Denmark) (Centraleuropæisk sommertid)

does anybody know a workaround for this? i could split the string for a ( but that does not seem like a good solution.

Here is the exception i get data 'Mon Aug 18 2014 21:11:54 GMT+0200 (Centraleuropæisk sommertid)' does not match format '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z'

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Nakor
– Nakor

2019-07-12 20:16:29 +00:00
Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 20:16 — Nakor
– Nakor, Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 20:16

Sebastin Santy · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-12 20:15:43Z

2

This should work for your case:

from email import utils
utils.parsedate_to_datetime('Mon Aug 18 2014 21:11:54 GMT+0200 (Centraleuropæisk sommertid)')

You can convert in the format you want hereon.

answered Jul 12, 2019 at 20:15

Sebastin Santy

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4 Comments

Kristoffer Tølbøll Over a year ago

What does this return?

nycynik Over a year ago

returns datetime.datetime(2014, 8, 18, 21, 11, 54)

Sebastin Santy Over a year ago

Though this doesn't honor the timezone. If you remove GMT from the string, it will.

Kristoffer Tølbøll Over a year ago

@SebastinSanty the problem is that removing the GMT part would be quite a hassle, because the language/format can be different for each language. So splitting it would cause some problems.

henrikhorluck · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-12 20:29:54Z

-1

So I would suggest using the javascript Date .toISOString() method (MDN Docs) instead, which gives you an ISO8601-formatted date-string (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ), and then you could simply change the parser function accordingly:

def datetime_converter(datetime_str: str) -> datetime:
    return datetime.strptime(datetime_str, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z")

Since python 3.6, you are also able type-annotate your python code, following the PEP-528 standard

edited Jul 12, 2019 at 20:29

answered Jul 12, 2019 at 20:19

henrikhorluck

265 bronze badges

5 Comments

Kristoffer Tølbøll Over a year ago

Very interesting, What is that syntax you are using for the function?

henrikhorluck Over a year ago

Python type annotation, which, if you are working on larger projects, or just want to read code you wrote 3 months ago, can be quite helpful in finding out how a function is supposed to be used.

Kristoffer Tølbøll Over a year ago

Very nice trick actually, I was not aware you could do this. I have only tried something similar using the dataclass API from python.

henrikhorluck Over a year ago

It can be quite helpful indeed, especially if paired with docstrings, and more sensible function name, like parse_ISO8601, and a docstring like: '''Parses an ISO8601 date into a python datetime object Arguments: date_string (str): An ISO8601 formatted datetime string Returns: datetime:A datetime-object representing the time of the input-string ''' However in this case that is unnecessary

henrikhorluck Over a year ago

@baileyhaldwin did you remember to change the format of the string sent from your frontend?

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