Parsing a Datetime String into a Django DateTimeField

Question

I have a Django app with a model that contains a field of type DateTimeField.
I am pulling data from the web in the format of 2008-04-10 11:47:58-05.
I believe that the last 3 characters in this example are the timezone.
How can I preserve that data in the DateTimeField, and is there an easy conversion between the two? Setting the DateTimeField to simply contain a string of the above format throws a ValidationError.

Thank you!

score 106 · Answer 1 · 2016-09-23T13:03:03.290

106

You can also use Django's implementation. I would in fact prefer it and only use something else, if Django's parser cannot handle the format.

For example:

>>> from django.utils.dateparse import parse_datetime
>>> parse_datetime('2016-10-03T19:00:00')
datetime.datetime(2016, 10, 3, 19, 0)
>>> parse_datetime('2016-10-03T19:00:00+0200')
datetime.datetime(2016, 10, 3, 19, 0, tzinfo=<django.utils.timezone.FixedOffset object at 0x8072546d8>)

To have it converted to the right timezone when none is known, use make_aware from django.utils.timezone.

So ultimately, your parser utility would be:

from django.utils.dateparse import parse_datetime
from django.utils.timezone import is_aware, make_aware

def get_aware_datetime(date_str):
    ret = parse_datetime(date_str)
    if not is_aware(ret):
        ret = make_aware(ret)
    return ret

edited Sep 23 '16 at 13:03

answered Jun 15 '14 at 09:49

2

I sure wish the docs specified exactly what a 'well formatted' date is, though! I would expect that to mean RFC 1123, but it doesn't seem to like what my browser is sending back... – Michael Scheper Nov 18 '14 at 11:21
1

This answer is not correct in that a timezone aware datetime is not returned, at least not in 1.8.4. You can try this for yourself `from django.utils import timezone, dateparse; timezone.is_aware(dateparse.parse_datetime('2015-09-04 19:22:17'))` and also see in the [source](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/_modules/django/utils/dateparse/#parse_datetime) that a datetime.datetime is returned. – Jmills Aug 27 '15 at 15:49
2

@TheCardCheat You're right that it doesn't make_aware() (github tells me it never did and yet code I used became aware somewhere). But, if an input string contains a timezone offset that is recognized then it *does* return an aware datetime. – Sep 23 '16 at 12:51

nisc · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-26T18:14:28.890

59

You can use

import dateutil.parser
dateutil.parser.parse('2008-04-10 11:47:58-05')

Which returns a datetime (that can be assigned to the DateTimeField).

edited Dec 26 '11 at 18:14

answered Dec 26 '11 at 15:07

nisc

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this sounds great, but in my python 2.6.5 there is no datetime.parser or datetime.datetime.parser modules (I get an ImportError). What am I missing? – user1094786 Dec 26 '11 at 16:26
26

Note that `dateutil` is a third-party module (see [python-dateutil](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-dateutil/) on PyPI), which you may not have installed by default. – Pi Delport Jul 30 '12 at 12:30
perfect, thanks! It figured out my string date format, great time saver. – Bogatyr Sep 26 '14 at 18:01
How can i parse the 'November 1, 1990' to date sir i am new to python? – Shift 'n Tab Jul 20 '16 at 05:27

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 14 '14 at 15:36

17

I've been using this:

from django.utils.timezone import get_current_timezone
from datetime import datetime
tz = get_current_timezone()
dt = tz.localize(datetime.strptime(str_date, '%m/%d/%Y'))

answered Jul 14 '14 at 15:36

Paul Tomblin

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score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 19 '19 at 14:37

String format of Django DateTimeField is "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ". Hence, conversion between eachother can be done using strptime() or strptime() using this format.

eg. for string formatted value (2016-10-03T19:00:00.999Z), it can be converted to Django datetime object as :

from datetime import datetime

datetime_str = '2016-10-03T19:00:00.999Z'

datetime_object = datetime.strptime(datetime_str, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ")

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

3

If you're using Django Forms, you can specify input_formats to your DateField. See the DateField documentation

If you are wanting to parse arbitrary date information, you could use something like parsedatetime and implement a method that Django calls to do the parsing before it hits the validators. (See this SO answer for a good summary of how validations work and when to insert them)

edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

Community

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answered Dec 26 '11 at 15:06

RyanWilcox

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 09 '22 at 09:52

To make standard format:

from django.utils.dateparse import parse_datetime
formatted_datetime = parse_datetime(YOUR_STRING_DATETIME).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
print(f"formatted_datetime: {formatted_datetime}")

You will see something like this:

2022-02-09 12:58:52

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Parsing a Datetime String into a Django DateTimeField

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