How to sort different date time formats?

Question

I have the following code:

comments = sorted(comments, key=lambda k: k['time_created'])

How to sort correctly if some elements have the different format, like 2017-12-14T17:42:30.345244+0000 and 2017-12-14 00:23:23.468560 and my code fail when trying to compare?

I need to save seconds accuracy.

Is it the good solution?

comments = sorted(comments, key=lambda k: self.unix_time_millis(k['time_created']), reverse=True)


@staticmethod
def unix_time_millis(dt):
    epoch = datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(0)
    return (dt - epoch).total_seconds() * 1000.0

you could map the timestamp to a datetime object and sort these. — T4rk1n
– T4rk1n, Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 21:43
In your place, I will convert everything to ms ans make the sort — Walid Da.
– Walid Da., Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 21:47

Omni · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-14 21:46:09Z

1

Python datetime objects are comparable and therefore sortable. I assume that you currently don't use datetime objects but Strings. The following example code is taken from How to format date string via multiple formats in python

import dateutil.parser
dateutil.parser.parse(date_string)

You would then convert a list of strings to datetime objects via

list_of_dt_objs = [dateutil.parser.parse(str) for str in list_of_strings]

Please note that dateutil is an extension lib. So you have to install it, for instance via pip.

answered Dec 14, 2017 at 21:46

Omni

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Comments

Walid Da. · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-17 17:55:40Z

0

Something like this:

import re
import operator

def convert_to_secs(date_string):
    multipliers = [31557600,2592000,86400,3600,60]
    date_in_secs = 0
    index = 0
    for v in re.split(':|-|T|\.|\+|\ ',date_string):
        if index < len(multipliers):
            date_in_secs = date_in_secs + int(v) * multipliers[index]
            index += 1
        else:
            break
    return date_in_secs

def sort_dates(my_dates_in_string):
    my_dates_dict = {}
    for string_date in my_dates_in_string:
        my_dates_dict[string_date] = convert_to_secs(string_date)
    return sorted(my_dates_dict.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(1))

print sort_dates(["2017-12-14T17:42:30.345244+0000", "2017-12-14 00:23:23.468560"])

edited Dec 17, 2017 at 17:55

answered Dec 14, 2017 at 22:30

Walid Da.

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