Python: How to convert string into datetime [duplicate]

Answer 1

Use the datetime.strptime method:

import datetime
datetime.datetime.strptime(your_string, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f")

The link provided presents the different format directives. Note that the microseconds are limited to the range [0,999999], meaning that a ValueError will be raised with your example (you're using 1/10us): you need to truncate your string to drop the final character.

Answer 2

Use the datetime module.

td = datetime.strptime('2012-09-28T16:41:12.997656', '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f') - 
     datetime.strptime('2012-09-28T23:57:44.663659', '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f')
print td
# => datetime.timedelta(-1, 60208, 333997)

There is only one small problem: Your microseconds are one digit to long for %f to handle. So I've removed the last digits from your input strings.

Answer 3

You can use the python-dateutil parse() function, it's more flexible than strptime. Hope this help you.