How to get part of string and pass it to other function in python?

Question

My task is to verify whether string is valid date and time or not.

\"2013-01-01W23:01:01\"

The date and the time are separated with

Answer 1

Use str.partition() to get the first part, fast:

value.partition('W')[0]

You could use str.split() as well, for Python versions < 2.5. Limit the split to just the first W:

value.split('W', 1)[0]

Either technique will always yield a result, even if there is no 'W' character in value.

Demo:

>>> value = "2013-01-01W23:01:01"
>>> value.partition('W')[0]
'2013-01-01'
>>> value.split('W', 1)[0]
'2013-01-01'