Right now I have:
timestamp = datetime.strptime(date_string, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
This works great unless I'm converting a string that doesn't have the microseconds. How can I specify that the microseconds are optional (and should be considered 0 if they aren't in the string)?
You could use a try/except
block:
try:
timestamp = datetime.strptime(date_string, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
except ValueError:
timestamp = datetime.strptime(date_string, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
What about just appending it if it doesn't exist?
if '.' not in date_string:
date_string = date_string + '.0'
timestamp = datetime.strptime(date_string, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
I prefer using regex matches instead of try and except. This allows for many fallbacks of acceptable formats.
# full timestamp with milliseconds
match = re.match(r"\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\d+Z", date_string)
if match:
return datetime.strptime(date_string, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ")
# timestamp missing milliseconds
match = re.match(r"\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}Z", date_string)
if match:
return datetime.strptime(date_string, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")
# timestamp missing milliseconds & seconds
match = re.match(r"\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T\d{2}:\d{2}Z", date_string)
if match:
return datetime.strptime(date_string, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%MZ")
# unknown timestamp format
return false
Don't forget to import "re" as well as "datetime" for this method.
datetime(*map(int, re.findall('\d+', date_string)))
can parse both '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f'
and '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
. It is too permissive if your input is not filtered.
It is quick-and-dirty but sometimes strptime()
is too slow. It can be used if you know that the input has the expected date format.