Date formatting using python

Question

To get date I use this block:

currentDate = date.today()
today = currentDate.strftime('%m/%d/%Y')

It returns me this format 12/22/2014 or 01/02/2015 Then I have to compare to string from the file (note: I can't change the string) 12/22/2014 or 1/2/2015 and I use:

if l[0] == today:

In second case it obviously failed. My question: how could I change strftime() in order to return only one charachter for month and day when it has preceeding zero?

compare two datetime objects not strings

Padraic Cunningham
– Padraic Cunningham

2015-01-03 18:07:52 +00:00
Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 18:07 — Padraic Cunningham
– Padraic Cunningham, Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 18:07

OMGtechy · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-03 18:10:27Z

3

Referring to the documentation, it doesn't appear that there is a character sequence for this. However, you could correct the result as follows:

today = currentDate.strftime('%m/%d/%Y').replace("/0", "/")
if today[0] == '0':
    today = today[1:]

This will eliminate any leading 0s so long as the values are split with a forward slash.

edited Jan 3, 2015 at 18:10

answered Jan 3, 2015 at 17:57

OMGtechy

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5 Comments

Digisec Over a year ago

That would not replace the first leading 0

susja Over a year ago

-OMGthchy, I like you suggestion, I did this: (Pdb) today = currentDate.strftime('%m/%d/%Y').replace("/0", "/") (Pdb) p today '01/3/2015' Hence it replaced second zero, is it option to remove both zeros?

OMGtechy Over a year ago

@susik there was a typo where I checked it against 0 not '0', this should work now

susja Over a year ago

Great!! Works perfect now both when date has or does not have zero in date. Appreciate it.

OMGtechy Over a year ago

@susik no problem. Now if you don't understand the code I advise you read through it until you do, as things like this come up a lot.

Padraic Cunningham · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-03 18:15:29Z

2

just compare datetime objects:

from datetime import datetime, date

currentDate = date.today()
file_dt = "1/3/2015"
dt2 = datetime.strptime(file_dt,"%m/%d/%Y")
print(dt2.date() == currentDate)

answered Jan 3, 2015 at 18:15

Padraic Cunningham

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Comments

Suicide Platypus · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-03 18:31:49Z

0

today = currentDate.strftime('%-m/%-d/%Y')

WARNING, not standard, so could not work on some platforms (check strftime(3) documentation, section "Glibc notes"). Anyway, I agree with other answers, better to compare datetime objects

answered Jan 3, 2015 at 18:31

Suicide Platypus

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