ValueError parsing time string

Question

I have written this code to convert a unusual time into EPOCH:

x = 'Mon Jul 25 19:04:30 GMT+01:00 2016'
print(datetime.strptime(x, '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z%z %Y').strftime('%s'))

However, it returns the error ValueError: time data 'Mon Jul 25 19:04:30 GMT+01:00 2016' does not match format '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z%z %Y'

The problem is something to do with the timezone. What have I done wrong?

UTC offset must be in the form +HHMM or -HHMM, yours is +HH:MM. — DYZ
– DYZ, Commented Jan 21, 2017 at 18:34

akuiper · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-21 18:34:33Z

3

Your timezone format has an extra : inside which causes the format mismatching error, you can remove the last : from the string firstly and then parse it:

import re
from datetime import datetime
x1 = re.sub(r":(?=[^:]+$)", "", x)   # remove the last semi colon

datetime.strptime(x1, '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z%z %Y').strftime('%s')
# '1469487870'

answered Jan 21, 2017 at 18:34

akuiper

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1 Comment

user2390182 Over a year ago

Interestingly, this works in Python3, but in Python2, this fails with: ValueError: 'z' is a bad directive in format '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z%z %Y'

Andrea Ianni · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-21 18:57:50Z

2

If you use dateutil instead of datetime.strptime it seems to work:

from dateutil import parser
parser.parse("Mon Jul 25 19:04:30 GMT+01:00 2016")
>> datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 25, 19, 4, 30, tzinfo=tzoffset(None, -3600))

edited Jan 21, 2017 at 18:57

answered Jan 21, 2017 at 18:37

Andrea Ianni

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