Python String to DateTime using strptime()

In this tutorial, we’ll see how to parse a string to a datetime using the strptime() with the various standard date formatting codes available in Python. In addition, we will see similar methods available in the other modules for converting a string to a date or time object.

Steps to Convert String to DateTime in Python

Example: Parse String to Datetime

Syntax:

datetime.strptime(date_string, format)

Let us see with an example where we have a string representing the date and time in the standard format (dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm:ss).

from datetime import datetime

# Date String in dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM:SS format
dt_string = "12/06/2021 09:15:32"

# Convert string to datetime object
dt_object = datetime.strptime(dt_string, "%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S")
print(dt_object)

# Output 2021-06-12 09:15:32

Refer to Python format Datetime using strftime() to convert a datetime to string

String to Date Object

• First, convert a string to a datetime object using the strptime() function
• Use datetime.date() function to extract only the date object from the datetime instance.

Example:

from datetime import datetime

# convert yyyy-mm-dd string to date object
dt_object = datetime.strptime("2021/06/27 09:15:32", "%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S").date()
print(dt_object)

# Output 2021-06-27

Note: If a string represents the date without time, use only %d/%m/%Y format codes.

d_object = datetime.strptime("2021/06/27", "%Y/%m/%d").date()

String to time Object

Also, you can use the datetime.time class to convert a string containing the time to a time object.

• First, convert a string to a datetime object
• Use datetime.time() function to extract only the time object from the datetime instance.

from datetime import datetime

# Convert string to datetime.time object
time_obj = datetime.strptime("12/06/2021 09:15:32", "%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S").time()
print(time_obj)

# Output 09:15:32

Note: If a string represents the time without date, use only %H/%M/%S format codes.

t_object = datetime.strptime("11:45:23", "%H:%M:%S").time()

String to time Object using Time Module

We can use the time module’s strptime() method to convert time in string format to a time object in time.struct_time format.

Syntax:

time.strptime(string[, format])

Let us see with an example where we have a string mentioning the time in the hours-minutes-seconds format (hh:mm:ss).

Example:

import time

# time hours-minutes-seconds format
time_string = "09-15-09"
format_codes = "%H-%M-%S"

time_obj = time.strptime(time_string, format_codes)
print("Time Object", time_obj)
print(type(time_obj))

Output

Time Object time.struct_time(tm_year=1900, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=9, tm_min=15, tm_sec=9, tm_wday=0, tm_yday=1, tm_isdst=-1)
<class 'time.struct_time'>

How strptime() works?

This method basically converts the string into a datetime object according to a format.

Note: In case the string argument that is passed to the strptime() method doesn’t match the format specified, a ValueError will be raised. 

The exception will have an error message that shows a format mismatch or extra data in the string. We can catch the error using exception handling inside a try-except block.

from datetime import datetime

birthday = '23-02-2021 09:13:00'
try:
    datetime_object = datetime.strptime(birthday, '%d-%m-%Y')
except ValueError as message:
    print('A value error is raised because :', message)

Output:

A value error is raised because : unconverted data remains:  09:13:00

strptime() Formatting Codes

The strptime() takes some standard directives for mentioning the format of the string for parsing. The following table provides a summary of the available directives for the strptime() function.

The same set of directives are shared between both the strptime() and strftime() methods.

Now we can see more combinations with examples for a better understanding of the directives. The below format code works on all platforms with a standard C implementation.

String with Day and Month Name to Datetime

We can parse a string with full or abbreviated weekday and full or abbreviated month names to a datetime object using the following format codes.

• %A: Returns the full name of the weekday. Like, Monday, Tuesday
• %a: Returns the short name of the weekday (First three character.). Like, Mon, Tue
• %B: Returns the full name of the month. Like, June, March
• %b: Returns the short name of the month (First three character.). Like, Mar, Jun

Example 1: String with Full Day and Month Name

from datetime import datetime

# String with full day and month name
date_str = "Wednesday,10 February,2021 12:19:47"

# %A is to parse weekday and %B to parse month name
dt_obj = datetime.strptime(date_str, "%A,%d %B,%Y %H:%M:%S")
print("Date Object:", dt_obj)

# Output  2021-02-10 12:19:47

Example 2: String with abbreviated Day and Month Names

from datetime import datetime

# String with full day and month name
date_str = "Wed,10 Feb,21"

# %a is to parse short weekday and %b to parse short month name
dt_obj = datetime.strptime(date_str, "%a,%d %b,%y")
print("Date Object:", dt_obj)

# Output Date Object: 2021-02-10 00:00:00

Parse String with AM/PM to a Datetime

We can parse a string with AM/PM details to a datetime object using the format directive %p.

from datetime import datetime

# String with Am Pm
date_str = "23-Feb-2021 09.15 AM"

# %p is to parse Am/Pm
dt_obj = datetime.strptime(date_str, "%d-%b-%Y %I.%M %p")
print("DateTime Object:", dt_obj)

# Output 2021-02-23 09:15:00

Parse String with Timezone to Datetime

We can convert a string with offset information represented as timedelta (+/-) or with the timezone names to the datetime object using the %z and %Z format directives.

Read: Working with Timezones in Python

Example:

from datetime import datetime

# Date string with UTC Offset.
date_str = "23/Feb/2021:09:15:26 +0200"
# %z to convert UTC offset to date
dt_obj1 = datetime.strptime(date_str, "%d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S %z")
print("Date Object With UTC offset::", dt_obj1)

# Date String with Timezone Name.
date_str2 = "23/Feb/2012:09:15:26 UTC +0900"
# %Z %z to convert string with timezone to date
dt_obj2 = datetime.strptime(date_str2, "%d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S %Z %z")
print("Date Object With Timezone Name::", dt_obj2)

Output

Date Object With UTC offset:: 2021-02-23 09:15:26+02:00
Date Object With Timezone Name:: 2012-02-23 09:15:26+09:00

import locale
from datetime import datetime

locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'de_DE')
# de_DE locale
date_german = '23-Februar-2021 Donnerstag'

datetime_obj = datetime.strptime(date_german, '%d-%B-%Y %A')
print(datetime_obj)

# Output 2012-02-23 00:00:00

from datetime import datetime

# Date string with UTC Offset.
iso_date = '2021-02-23T09:15:24+0200'
x = datetime.strptime(iso_date, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z")
print('DateTIme Object with ISO Date', x)

DateTIme Object with ISO Date 2021-02-23 09:15:24+02:00

from datetime import datetime

# String to Date
birthday = "23/02/2012 09::30::23"

# String to timestamp
timeStamp = datetime.strptime(birthday, "%d/%m/%Y %H::%M::%S").timestamp()
print("TimeStamp::", timeStamp)

# Output 1329969623.0

pip install python-dateutil

from dateutil.parser import parse
from dateutil.tz import gettz

tzinfos = {"BRST": -7200, "CST": gettz("America/Chicago")}
x = parse("2012-02-23 09:21:00 BRST", tzinfos=tzinfos)
print('DateTime', x)
print(type(x))

datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 23, 9, 21, tzinfo=tzoffset('BRST', -7200))

pip install arrow

# importing arrow module 
import arrow

# date in string format 
birthday = '2012-02-23 09:15:45'

# parsing string into date 
date = arrow.get(birthday, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss')

print(date)

# Output 2012-02-23T09:15:45+00:00

We need to install Maya using the following pip command.

pip install maya

For parsing a string object to date we need to use the parse() method and the datetime() method to create the datetime object.

Example:

import maya
maya.parse("February 23 2012 09:15").datetime()

Output

datetime.datetime(2012, 2, 23, 9, 15, tzinfo=<UTC>)