Parsing a String date into a date object in Python

Question

I am parsing a log file and one element contains the date as a String:

Tue Mar 31 20:24:23 BST 2015

The date is in element[i][0] of a 2DList

What I am a little stumped on (without going about this in some awful compare and replace manner) is how to turn this date into something comparable in Python.

I get a few entries in a log file which are within a few minutes of each other, so I would like to group these as one.

Tue Mar 31 20:24:23 BST 2015
Tue Mar 31 20:25:45 BST 2015
Tue Mar 31 20:26:02 BST 2015

What options can be suggested?

I am aware that I can input logic to replace 'Mar' with 3, remove Day Tue/Wed etc strings, but everything else is somewhat needed.

Would it be acceptable to replace a : with / I can then split the date into a list by its ' ' delimiter, then compare the 20/26/02 element, but before I go and do all that, is there a built in way? I have searched and found python datetime 1, which I would use after a lot of replacing values.

Really, I'm looking for a built in method!

see related: stackoverflow.com/questions/2803852/…

EdChum
– EdChum

2015-04-18 09:44:13 +00:00
Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 9:44 — EdChum
– EdChum, Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 9:44

x3al · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-18 09:26:51Z

2

You can use the datetime.datetime.strptime.

Here are format specifiers.

Something like datetime.strptime(your_string, "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y") should do the work.

answered Apr 18, 2015 at 9:26

x3al

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