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pythondbf

Python dbf: How to update a value?

so I am using python's dbf module (https://pypi.org/project/dbf/), and I want to update a key, value pair in a table. I have the following keys and values:

>>> for record in dbf.Process(table):
...     print record
...
  0 - store     : 590
  1 - date      : u'12/17/19'
  2 - check_num : 4
  3 - seq_main  : 1
  4 - option    : u'FALSE'
  5 - item_num  : 263

I want to update the 'date' field to datetime.date(2019, 12, 17). However, when I do the following:

>>> for record in dbf.Process(table):
...     record.date = datetime.date(2019, 12, 17)
...

I get the error:

File "/Users/me/Library/Python/2.7/lib/python/site-packages/dbf/__init__.py", line 3946, in update_character
    raise ValueError("unable to coerce %r(%r) to string" % (type(string), string))
ValueError: unable to coerce <type 'datetime.date'>(datetime.date(2019, 12, 17)) to string

Does anyone have an idea on how to convert the string date to a datetime object? Any help is appreciated.

Solution

  • The field is actually a character field -- it just happens to store date information in it. You'll have to convert your date into text yourself and then save it:

    >>> for record in dbf.Process(table):
...     record.date = datetime.date(2019, 12, 17).strftime('%m/%d/%y')
...

    If your date field is 10 characters or more, change the %y to %Y to get a full 4-digit year.