How to convert a str like this format '2017-12-02 23:55:66.333+01:00' to datetime in python?

Question

I need to convert a set of strings that is in this format "2017-12-02 23:55:66.333+01:00" to datetime.

I tried using this:

from datetime import datetime

date_time_str = '2017-12-02 23:55:66.333+01:00'

date_time_obj = datetime.strptime(date_time_str, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S%z')

print ("The date is", date_time_obj)

But i have this output:

>> ValueError: raise ValueError("time data %r does not match format %r" %
ValueError: time data '2017-12-02 23:55:66.333+01:00' does not match format '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S%z'

How can i convert this date or this date_time_str is not valid?

Answer 1

There are two problems:

• your seconds are greater than 60
• you need to include the microseconds formatter

Thus to fix it,

from datetime import datetime
date_time_str = '2017-12-02 23:55:06.333+01:00'
date_time_obj = datetime.strptime(date_time_str, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f%z')
print("The date is", date_time_obj)

yields

The date is 2017-12-02 23:55:06.333000+01:00

You can catch the error caused by the seconds being too large and raise a helpful error message by

from datetime import datetime
date_time_str = '2017-12-02 23:55:06.333+01:00'
try:
    date_time_obj = datetime.strptime(date_time_str, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f%z')
except ValueError as ve:
    if "unconverted data remains" in ve.args[0]:
        raise ValueError("One of the values in the time string isn't meaninful")
    else:
        raise ve
print("The date is", date_time_obj)