Convert timestamps with offset to datetime obj using strptime

Question

I am trying to convert time-stamps of the format "2012-07-24T23:14:29-07:00" to datetime objects in python using strptime method. The problem is with the time offset at the end(-07:00). Without the offset i can successfully do

time_str = "2012-07-24T23:14:29"

time_obj=datetime.datetime.strptime(time_str,'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')

But with the offset i tried

time_str = "2012-07-24T23:14:29-07:00"

time_obj=datetime.datetime.strptime(time_str,'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S-%z').

But it gives a Value error saying "z" is a bad directive.

Any ideas for a work around?

Answer 1

The Python 2 strptime() function indeed does not support the %z format for timezones (because the underlying time.strptime() function doesn't support it). You have two options:

• Ignore the timezone when parsing with strptime:

  time_obj = datetime.datetime.strptime(time_str[:19], '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')
  

• use the dateutil module, it's parse function does deal with timezones:

  from dateutil.parser import parse
  time_obj = parse(time_str)
  

Quick demo on the command prompt:

>>> from dateutil.parser import parse
>>> parse("2012-07-24T23:14:29-07:00")
datetime.datetime(2012, 7, 24, 23, 14, 29, tzinfo=tzoffset(None, -25200))

You could also upgrade to Python 3.2 or newer, where timezone support has been improved to the point that %z would work, provided you remove the last : from the input, and the - from before the %z:

>>> import datetime
>>> time_str = "2012-07-24T23:14:29-07:00"
>>> datetime.datetime.strptime(time_str, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Users/mj/Development/Library/buildout.python/parts/opt/lib/python3.4/_strptime.py", line 500, in _strptime_datetime
    tt, fraction = _strptime(data_string, format)
  File "/Users/mj/Development/Library/buildout.python/parts/opt/lib/python3.4/_strptime.py", line 337, in _strptime
    (data_string, format))
ValueError: time data '2012-07-24T23:14:29-07:00' does not match format '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z'
>>> ''.join(time_str.rsplit(':', 1))
'2012-07-24T23:14:29-0700'
>>> datetime.datetime.strptime(''.join(time_str.rsplit(':', 1)), '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z')
datetime.datetime(2012, 7, 24, 23, 14, 29, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(-1, 61200)))