I am trying to parse a date string like this:
import datetime
document_updated_on = '01-Feb-2024#15:22 WET'
format_str = "%d-%b-%Y#%H:%M %Z"
updated_on_date = datetime.datetime.strptime(document_updated_on, format_str)
I am having issues with the time zone and getting the error:
ValueError: time data '01-Feb-2024#15:22 WET' does not match format '%d-%b-%Y#%H:%M %Z'
The %Z specifier is deprecated anyway, and WET (Western European Time) simply doesn't seem to be supported.
You can work around this with something like
import datetime
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
def parse_datetime(dt_str: str):
if dt_str.endswith(" WET"):
dt = datetime.datetime.strptime(dt_str.removesuffix(" WET"), "%d-%b-%Y#%H:%M")
return dt.replace(tzinfo=ZoneInfo("WET"))
return datetime.datetime.strptime(dt_str, "%d-%b-%Y#%H:%M %Z")
print(parse_datetime('01-Feb-2024#15:22 WET').timetuple())
print(parse_datetime('01-Feb-2024#15:22 EEST').timetuple())
This prints out
time.struct_time(tm_year=2024, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=15, tm_min=22, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=32, tm_isdst=0)
time.struct_time(tm_year=2024, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=15, tm_min=22, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=32, tm_isdst=-1)
from my experience, you can either remove the time zone information, or create a Custom Parsing Function. To create the custom function it requires manual handling of time zones, which can be complex due to daylight saving time changes and other factors. For more robust timezone handling, consider using the pytz library or the zoneinfo module
It will look something like this:
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
import pytz
def parse_custom_date(date_str):
# Splitting the string into date and time parts
date_part, time_part_with_tz = date_str.split('#')
# Parsing the date part
date_obj = datetime.strptime(date_part, "%d-%b-%Y")
# Parsing the time part and extracting the timezone
time_part, tz = time_part_with_tz.split()
time_obj = datetime.strptime(time_part, "%H:%M")
# Adjusting the time_obj based on the timezone if necessary
if tz == "WET":
# Assuming WET is UTC+0 for simplicity; adjust as needed
time_obj += timedelta(hours=0)
# Combining the date and time objects
updated_on_date = datetime.combine(date_obj.date(), time_obj.time())
return updated_on_date
updated_on_str = '01-Feb-2024#15:22 WET'
updated_on_date = parse_custom_date(updated_on_str)
print(updated_on_date)
Using GMT instead of WET works, if this is a feasible solution.
Since GMT and WET are both UTC 0, this should work.
import datetime
document_updated_on = '01-Feb-2024#15:22 GMT'
format_str = "%d-%b-%Y#%H:%M %Z"
updated_on_date = datetime.datetime.strptime(document_updated_on, format_str)
If you can't use GMT as a substitute, you can take a look at the other solutions.
