Python:
Parsing a date from a string

How to:

Python’s standard library provides the datetime module, which includes the strptime method for this purpose. The method requires two arguments: the date string and a format directive that specifies the pattern of the input string.

from datetime import datetime

# Example string
date_string = "2023-04-01 14:30:00"
# Parsing string to datetime object
parsed_date = datetime.strptime(date_string, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")

print(parsed_date)
# Output: 2023-04-01 14:30:00

For more nuanced date parsing, especially when dealing with multiple formats or locales, the third-party library dateutil can be extremely helpful. It provides a parser module which can parse dates in almost any string format.

from dateutil import parser

# Example strings
date_string1 = "April 1, 2023 2:30 PM"
date_string2 = "1st April 2023 14:30"

# Using dateutil's parser
parsed_date1 = parser.parse(date_string1)
parsed_date2 = parser.parse(date_string2)

print(parsed_date1)
# Output: 2023-04-01 14:30:00
print(parsed_date2)
# Output: 2023-04-01 14:30:00

dateutil is adept at handling most date formats without explicit format strings, making it a versatile choice for applications dealing with diverse date representations.