"Thomas W" wrote: > I'm developing a web-application where the user sometimes has to enter > dates in plain text, allthough a format may be provided to give clues. > On the server side this piece of text has to be parsed into a datetime > python-object. Does anybody have any pointers on this? > > Besides the actual parsing, my main concern is the different locale > date formats and how to be able to parse those strange us-like > "month/day/year" compared to the clever and intuitive european-style > "day/month/year" etc. > > I've searched google, but haven't found any good referances that helped > me solve this problem, especially with regards to the locale date > format issues. > > Best regards, > Thomas
Although it is not a solution to the general localization problem, you may try the mx.DateTimeFrom() factory function (http://www.egenix.com/files/python/mxDateTime.html#DateTime) for the parsing part. I had also written some time ago a more robust and customized version of such parser. The ambiguous us/european style dates are disambiguated by the provided optional argument USA (False by default <wink>). Below is the doctest and the documentation (with epydoc tags); mail me offlist if you'd like to check it out. George #======================================================= def parseDateTime(string, USA=False, implyCurrentDate=False, yearHeuristic=_20thcenturyHeuristic): '''Tries to parse a string as a valid date and/or time. It recognizes most common (and less common) date and time formats. Examples: >>> # doctest was run succesfully on... >>> str(datetime.date.today()) '2005-05-16' >>> str(parseDateTime('21:23:39.91')) '21:23:39.910000' >>> str(parseDateTime('16:15')) '16:15:00' >>> str(parseDateTime('10am')) '10:00:00' >>> str(parseDateTime('2:7:18.')) '02:07:18' >>> str(parseDateTime('08:32:40 PM')) '20:32:40' >>> str(parseDateTime('11:59pm')) '23:59:00' >>> str(parseDateTime('12:32:9')) '12:32:09' >>> str(parseDateTime('12:32:9', implyCurrentDate=True)) '2005-05-16 12:32:09' >>> str(parseDateTime('93/7/18')) '1993-07-18' >>> str(parseDateTime('15.6.2001')) '2001-06-15' >>> str(parseDateTime('6.15.2001')) '2001-06-15' >>> str(parseDateTime('1980, November 20')) '1980-11-20' >>> str(parseDateTime('4 Mar 79')) '1979-03-04' >>> str(parseDateTime('July 4')) '2005-07-04' >>> str(parseDateTime('15/08')) '2005-08-15' >>> str(parseDateTime('5 Mar 3:45pm')) '2005-03-05 15:45:00' >>> str(parseDateTime('01 02 2003')) '2003-02-01' >>> str(parseDateTime('01 02 2003', USA=True)) '2003-01-02' >>> str(parseDateTime('3/4/92')) '1992-04-03' >>> str(parseDateTime('3/4/92', USA=True)) '1992-03-04' >>> str(parseDateTime('12:32:09 1-2-2003')) '2003-02-01 12:32:09' >>> str(parseDateTime('12:32:09 1-2-2003', USA=True)) '2003-01-02 12:32:09' >>> str(parseDateTime('3:45pm 5 12 2001')) '2001-12-05 15:45:00' >>> str(parseDateTime('3:45pm 5 12 2001', USA=True)) '2001-05-12 15:45:00' @param USA: Disambiguates strings that are valid dates in both (month, day, year) and (day, month, year) order (e.g. 05/03/2002). If True, the first format is assumed. @param implyCurrentDate: If True and the date is not given, the current date is implied. @param yearHeuristic: If not None, a callable f(year) that transforms the value of the given year. The default heuristic transforms 2-digit years to 4-digit years assuming they are in the 20th century:: lambda year: (year >= 100 and year or year >= 10 and 1900 + year or None) The heuristic should return None if the year is not considered valid. If yearHeuristic is None, no year transformation takes place. @return: - C{datetime.date} if only the date is recognized. - C{datetime.time} if only the time is recognized and implyCurrentDate is False. - C{datetime.datetime} if both date and time are recognized. @raise ValueError: If the string cannot be parsed successfully. ''' -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
