As of Python 3.7, datetime.datetime.fromisoformat() can handle your format:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.fromisoformat('2012-11-01T04:16:13-04:00')
datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 1, 4, 16, 13, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(days=-1, seconds=72000)))
In older Python versions you can't, not without a whole lot of painstaking manual timezone defining.
Python versions before version 3.9 do not include a timezone database, because it would be outdated too quickly. Instead, for those versions Python relied on external libraries, which can have a far faster release cycle, to provide properly configured timezones for you.
As a side-effect, this means that timezone parsing also needs to be an external library. If dateutil is too heavy-weight for you, use iso8601 instead, it'll parse your specific format just fine:
>>> import iso8601
>>> iso8601.parse_date('2012-11-01T04:16:13-04:00')
datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 1, 4, 16, 13, tzinfo=<FixedOffset '-04:00'>)
iso8601 is a whopping 4KB small. Compare that tot python-dateutil's 148KB.
As of Python 3.2 Python can handle simple offset-based timezones, and %z will parse -hhmm and +hhmm timezone offsets in a timestamp. That means that for a ISO 8601 timestamp you'd have to remove the : in the timezone:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> iso_ts = '2012-11-01T04:16:13-04:00'
>>> datetime.strptime(''.join(iso_ts.rsplit(':', 1)), '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z')
datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 1, 4, 16, 13, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(-1, 72000)))
The lack of proper ISO 8601 parsing was being tracked in Python issue 15873 (since migrated to GitHub issue #60077).
Answer from Martijn Pieters on Stack OverflowAs of Python 3.7, datetime.datetime.fromisoformat() can handle your format:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.fromisoformat('2012-11-01T04:16:13-04:00')
datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 1, 4, 16, 13, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(days=-1, seconds=72000)))
In older Python versions you can't, not without a whole lot of painstaking manual timezone defining.
Python versions before version 3.9 do not include a timezone database, because it would be outdated too quickly. Instead, for those versions Python relied on external libraries, which can have a far faster release cycle, to provide properly configured timezones for you.
As a side-effect, this means that timezone parsing also needs to be an external library. If dateutil is too heavy-weight for you, use iso8601 instead, it'll parse your specific format just fine:
>>> import iso8601
>>> iso8601.parse_date('2012-11-01T04:16:13-04:00')
datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 1, 4, 16, 13, tzinfo=<FixedOffset '-04:00'>)
iso8601 is a whopping 4KB small. Compare that tot python-dateutil's 148KB.
As of Python 3.2 Python can handle simple offset-based timezones, and %z will parse -hhmm and +hhmm timezone offsets in a timestamp. That means that for a ISO 8601 timestamp you'd have to remove the : in the timezone:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> iso_ts = '2012-11-01T04:16:13-04:00'
>>> datetime.strptime(''.join(iso_ts.rsplit(':', 1)), '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z')
datetime.datetime(2012, 11, 1, 4, 16, 13, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(-1, 72000)))
The lack of proper ISO 8601 parsing was being tracked in Python issue 15873 (since migrated to GitHub issue #60077).
Here is the Python Doc for datetime object using dateutil package..
from dateutil.parser import parse
get_date_obj = parse("2012-11-01T04:16:13-04:00")
print get_date_obj
Parse "Z" timezone suffix in datetime - Ideas - Discussions on Python.org
datetime - How to parse dates with -0400 timezone string in Python? - Stack Overflow
Parsing date/time string with timezone abbreviated name in Python? - Stack Overflow
python - How to preserve timezone when parsing date/time strings with strptime()? - Stack Overflow
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Hi.
Consider this text string: 2021-01-01 01:01:00 UTC.
What's the best way of parsing this into a date object in Python 3? I could remove the "UTC" from the text, and then use something like datetime.strptime(date_string, format), but isn't there an easier way, like doesn't Python already have support for parseing strings like these?
You can use the parse function from dateutil:
>>> from dateutil.parser import parse
>>> d = parse('2009/05/13 19:19:30 -0400')
>>> d
datetime.datetime(2009, 5, 13, 19, 19, 30, tzinfo=tzoffset(None, -14400))
This way you obtain a datetime object you can then use.
As answered, dateutil2.0 is written for Python 3.0 and does not work with Python 2.x. For Python 2.x dateutil1.5 needs to be used.
%z is supported in Python 3.2+:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.strptime('2009/05/13 19:19:30 -0400', '%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S %z')
datetime.datetime(2009, 5, 13, 19, 19, 30,
tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(-1, 72000)))
On earlier versions:
from datetime import datetime
date_str = '2009/05/13 19:19:30 -0400'
naive_date_str, _, offset_str = date_str.rpartition(' ')
naive_dt = datetime.strptime(naive_date_str, '%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S')
offset = int(offset_str[-4:-2])*60 + int(offset_str[-2:])
if offset_str[0] == "-":
offset = -offset
dt = naive_dt.replace(tzinfo=FixedOffset(offset))
print(repr(dt))
# -> datetime.datetime(2009, 5, 13, 19, 19, 30, tzinfo=FixedOffset(-240))
print(dt)
# -> 2009-05-13 19:19:30-04:00
where FixedOffset is a class based on the code example from the docs:
from datetime import timedelta, tzinfo
class FixedOffset(tzinfo):
"""Fixed offset in minutes: `time = utc_time + utc_offset`."""
def __init__(self, offset):
self.__offset = timedelta(minutes=offset)
hours, minutes = divmod(offset, 60)
#NOTE: the last part is to remind about deprecated POSIX GMT+h timezones
# that have the opposite sign in the name;
# the corresponding numeric value is not used e.g., no minutes
self.__name = '<%+03d%02d>%+d' % (hours, minutes, -hours)
def utcoffset(self, dt=None):
return self.__offset
def tzname(self, dt=None):
return self.__name
def dst(self, dt=None):
return timedelta(0)
def __repr__(self):
return 'FixedOffset(%d)' % (self.utcoffset().total_seconds() / 60)
dateutil's parser.parse() accepts as keyword argument tzinfos a dictionary of the kind {'EST': -5*3600} (that is, matching the zone name to GMT offset in seconds). So assuming we have that, we can do:
>>> import dateutil.parser as dp
>>> s = 'Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM'
>>> for tz_code in ('PST','PDT','MST','MDT','CST','CDT','EST','EDT'):
>>> dt = s+' '+tz_code
>>> print dt, '=', dp.parse(dt, tzinfos=tzd)
Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM PST = 2009-11-01 20:00:00-08:00
Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM PDT = 2009-11-01 20:00:00-07:00
Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM MST = 2009-11-01 20:00:00-07:00
Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM MDT = 2009-11-01 20:00:00-06:00
Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM CST = 2009-11-01 20:00:00-06:00
Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM CDT = 2009-11-01 20:00:00-05:00
Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM EST = 2009-11-01 20:00:00-05:00
Sat, 11/01/09 8:00PM EDT = 2009-11-01 20:00:00-04:00
Regarding the content of tzinfos, here is how i populated mine:
tz_str = '''-12 Y
-11 X NUT SST
-10 W CKT HAST HST TAHT TKT
-9 V AKST GAMT GIT HADT HNY
-8 U AKDT CIST HAY HNP PST PT
-7 T HAP HNR MST PDT
-6 S CST EAST GALT HAR HNC MDT
-5 R CDT COT EASST ECT EST ET HAC HNE PET
-4 Q AST BOT CLT COST EDT FKT GYT HAE HNA PYT
-3 P ADT ART BRT CLST FKST GFT HAA PMST PYST SRT UYT WGT
-2 O BRST FNT PMDT UYST WGST
-1 N AZOT CVT EGT
0 Z EGST GMT UTC WET WT
1 A CET DFT WAT WEDT WEST
2 B CAT CEDT CEST EET SAST WAST
3 C EAT EEDT EEST IDT MSK
4 D AMT AZT GET GST KUYT MSD MUT RET SAMT SCT
5 E AMST AQTT AZST HMT MAWT MVT PKT TFT TJT TMT UZT YEKT
6 F ALMT BIOT BTT IOT KGT NOVT OMST YEKST
7 G CXT DAVT HOVT ICT KRAT NOVST OMSST THA WIB
8 H ACT AWST BDT BNT CAST HKT IRKT KRAST MYT PHT SGT ULAT WITA WST
9 I AWDT IRKST JST KST PWT TLT WDT WIT YAKT
10 K AEST ChST PGT VLAT YAKST YAPT
11 L AEDT LHDT MAGT NCT PONT SBT VLAST VUT
12 M ANAST ANAT FJT GILT MAGST MHT NZST PETST PETT TVT WFT
13 FJST NZDT
11.5 NFT
10.5 ACDT LHST
9.5 ACST
6.5 CCT MMT
5.75 NPT
5.5 SLT
4.5 AFT IRDT
3.5 IRST
-2.5 HAT NDT
-3.5 HNT NST NT
-4.5 HLV VET
-9.5 MART MIT'''
tzd = {}
for tz_descr in map(str.split, tz_str.split('\n')):
tz_offset = int(float(tz_descr[0]) * 3600)
for tz_code in tz_descr[1:]:
tzd[tz_code] = tz_offset
ps. per @Hank Gay time zone naming is not clearly defined. To form my table i used http://www.timeanddate.com/library/abbreviations/timezones/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_zone_abbreviations . I looked at each conflict and resolved conflicts between obscure and popular names towards the popular (more used ones). There was one - IST - that was not as clear cut (it can mean Indian Standard Time, Iran Standard Time, Irish Standard Time or Israel Standard Time), so i left it out of the table - you may need to chose what to add for it based on your location. Oh - and I left out the Republic of Kiribati with their absurd "look at me i am first to celebrate New Year" GMT+13 and GMT+14 time zones.
That probably won't work because those abbreviations aren't unique. See this page for details. You might wind up just having to manually handle it yourself if you're working with a known set of inputs.
I recommend using python-dateutil. Its parser has been able to parse every date format I've thrown at it so far.
>>> from dateutil import parser
>>> parser.parse("Tue Jun 22 07:46:22 EST 2010")
datetime.datetime(2010, 6, 22, 7, 46, 22, tzinfo=tzlocal())
>>> parser.parse("Fri, 11 Nov 2011 03:18:09 -0400")
datetime.datetime(2011, 11, 11, 3, 18, 9, tzinfo=tzoffset(None, -14400))
>>> parser.parse("Sun")
datetime.datetime(2011, 12, 18, 0, 0)
>>> parser.parse("10-11-08")
datetime.datetime(2008, 10, 11, 0, 0)
and so on. No dealing with strptime() format nonsense... just throw a date at it and it Does The Right Thing.
Since strptime returns a datetime object which has tzinfo attribute, We can simply replace it with desired timezone.
>>> import datetime
>>> date_time_str = '2018-06-29 08:15:27.243860'
>>> date_time_obj = datetime.datetime.strptime(date_time_str, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f').replace(tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>> date_time_obj.tzname()
'UTC'