Convert string string to datetime object

Question

My string is ,

str='2014-09-24T15:18:57+0000'

and I am trying to convert this string to valid datetime object. How to do that ?

What I tried is ,

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.strptime(str,'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#9>", line 1, in <module>
    datetime.strptime(str,'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')
  File "C:\Python27\lib\_strptime.py", line 328, in _strptime
    data_string[found.end():])
ValueError: unconverted data remains: +0000

But When I tried to change string to str='2014-09-24T15:18:57' it works fine,

>>> datetime.strptime('2014-09-24T15:18:57','%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')
datetime.datetime(2014, 9, 24, 15, 18, 57)

Whats wrong with +0000 , How to avoid first error ?

Vizjerei · Answer 1 · 2014-10-08T07:34:52.693

2

How about adding to your pattern %z that stands for UTC offset in the form +HHMM or -HHMM (empty string if the the object is naive)

So the pattern will look like %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z.

If you don't want the +0000 and it will always be in your str you can change your code to datetime.strptime(str[:-5],'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')

edited Oct 08 '14 at 07:34

answered Oct 08 '14 at 07:29

Vizjerei

1,000
8
15

`%z` is supported only since Python 3.2 – jfs Oct 12 '14 at 19:16

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 08 '14 at 07:18

0

Well you have a string and this pattern

2014-09-24T15:18:57+0000
%Y  -%m-%dT%H:%M:%S[    ]

And you're missing the +0000

Two options:

Get rid of +0000
Add something to your pattern

answered Oct 08 '14 at 07:18

Vincent Beltman

2,064
13
27

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 08 '14 at 07:31

0

try this:

import datetime
dt_str='2014-09-24T15:18:57+0000'
new_dt = dt_str[:19]
dt = datetime.datetime.strptime(new_dt, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')

answered Oct 08 '14 at 07:31

Avinash Garg

1,374
14
18

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

Whats wrong with +0000 , How to avoid first error ?

+0000 is a UTC offset, you could use %z directive to parse it (since Python 3.2):

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> time_string = '2014-09-24T15:18:57+0000'
>>> datetime.strptime(time_string, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z')
datetime.datetime(2014, 9, 24, 15, 18, 57, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)

%z is not available on older Python versions. If all timestamps have the same UTC offset +0000 then you could parse it as:

>>> datetime.strptime(time_string, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S+0000')
datetime.datetime(2014, 9, 24, 15, 18, 57)

Notice: the value is a naive datetime object (no timezone info). To attach the tzinfo, for older Python versions, see How to parse dates with -0400 timezone string in python?

Convert string string to datetime object

4 Answers4