I want to remove the padded zeroes from a string-formatted python date:
formatted_date = my_date.strftime("%m/%d/%Y") # outputs something like: 01/01/2013
date_out = formatted_date.replace(r'/0', r'/').replace(r'^0', r'')
The second replace doesnt work-- I get 01/1/2013. How do I match the zero only if it's next to the beginning of the string?
.replace() does not take regular expressions. You are trying to replace the literal text ^0.
Use str.format() to create a date format without zero-padding instead:
'{0.month}/{0.day}/{0.year}'.format(my_date)
and avoid having to replace the zeros.
Demo:
>>> import datetime
>>> today = datetime.date.today()
>>> '{0.month}/{0.day}/{0.year}'.format(today)
'9/10/2013'
If Python was compiled with the glibc library, then you could also use dashes in the format to suppress the padding:
my_date.strftime('%-m/%-d/%y')
but that is not nearly as portable.
.strftime() had versions of the format strings that allowed the omission of leading zeros. Looks like this was considered and rejected.
%e (Day of the month, space-padded ( 1-31)) but no equivalent for the month, and none without any padding.