Unable to match date with datetime

Question

I wanted to convert a date from git log but I'm trying to match the date from the documentation of datetime but it never matches.

from datetime import datetime
receivedDate = (commits[0]['Date']) #receiving date
print(receivedDate)      #e.g Thu Jan 14 12:47:30 2016 +0100      
receivedDate = ' '.join(receivedDate.split(' ')[:-1])  #removing +0100
date = datetime.strptime(receivedDate,'%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y')

ValueError: time data 'Thu Jan 14 12:47:30 2016' does not match format '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y'

I've also tried by keeping '+0100' and added %z, but it doesn't work either. It runs with python 3.6.

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Thanks for help or any idea :)

Answer 1

You can use python-dateutil where you don't need to provide a format string.

from dateutil import parser
print(parser.parse('Thu Jan 14 12:47:30 2016'))
#2016-01-14 12:47:30

Also I am able to use your datetime format as well.

import datetime
print(datetime.datetime.strptime('Thu Jan 14 12:47:30 2016', '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y'))
#2016-01-14 12:47:30