Convert a string containing a date into datetime in Python

David Y.

The Problem

How can I convert a string containing a date to a datetime object in Python? The format looks like this:

Feb 2 2020 2:05PM

The Solution

The datetime object includes a method called strptime(), which parses strings according to a provided format and returns a matching timezone-naive datetime object. A format is a string assembled from format codes.

To convert the string in our problem, our code might look like this:

from datetime import datetime my_datetime_string = 'Feb 2 2020 2:05PM' datetime_format = '%b %d %Y %I:%M%p' my_datetime = datetime.strptime(my_datetime_string, datetime_format) print(my_datetime) # will produce "2020-02-02 14:05:00"

Get Started With Sentry

Get actionable, code-level insights to resolve Python performance bottlenecks and errors.

  1. Create a free Sentry account

  2. Create a Python project and note your DSN

  3. Grab the Sentry Python SDK

pip install --upgrade sentry-sdk
  1. Configure your DSN
import sentry_sdk sentry_sdk.init( "https://<key>@sentry.io/<project>", # Set traces_sample_rate to 1.0 to capture 100% # of transactions for performance monitoring. # We recommend adjusting this value in production. traces_sample_rate=1.0, )

Loved by over 4 million developers and more than 90,000 organizations worldwide, Sentry provides code-level observability to many of the world’s best-known companies like Disney, Peloton, Cloudflare, Eventbrite, Slack, Supercell, and Rockstar Games. Each month we process billions of exceptions from the most popular products on the internet.

Share on Twitter
Bookmark this page
Ask a questionJoin the discussion

Related Answers

A better experience for your users. An easier life for your developers.

    TwitterGitHubDribbbleLinkedinDiscord
© 2024 • Sentry is a registered Trademark
of Functional Software, Inc.