time.strptime() and time.strftime() reciprocity

[Greg Krohn]

[Apologies for the use of "reciprocity" in the subject - it's a little
pompous, I know, but it fits so well. ]

Hello c.l.python!

I'm trying to parse some dates of the form "01/29/09 12:55 PM" from a
CSV file, but I'm having trouble with the format string in
time.strptime() . In testing this I found that the time module chokes on
a string that it created itself with the same format:

ActivePython 2.6.1.1 (ActiveState Software Inc.) based on
Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Dec 5 2008, 13:58:38) [MSC v.1500 32 bit
(Intel)] on
win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "C:\Python26\lib\_strptime.py", line 454, in _strptime_time
return _strptime(data_string, format)[0]
File "C:\Python26\lib\_strptime.py", line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data '%m/%d/%y %I:%M %p' does not match format
'02/16/09 04:52
PM'

So, yeah, that seems weird to me. Does anyone get similar results, know
why this is happening, and/or how to fix it?

Thanks.

 

[Denis Kasak]

ActivePython 2.6.1.1 (ActiveState Software Inc.) based on
Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Dec 5 2008, 13:58:38) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)]
on
win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "C:\Python26\lib\_strptime.py", line 454, in _strptime_time
return _strptime(data_string, format)[0]
File "C:\Python26\lib\_strptime.py", line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data '%m/%d/%y %I:%M %p' does not match format '02/16/09
04:52
PM'

So, yeah, that seems weird to me. Does anyone get similar results, know why
this is happening, and/or how to fix it?

It's actually pretty trivial to fix, which you would have also known
if you had read the message of the exception more carefully.

You passed the arguments for strptime() the wrong way around. Just
pass them in reverse and your problem will be fixed.