How to read datetime back from sqlite as a datetime instead of string in Python?

Question

I\'m using the sqlite3 module in Python 2.6.4 to store a datetime in a SQLite database. Inserting it is very easy, because sqlite automatically converts the date to a string

Answer 1

It turns out that sqlite3 can do this and it's even documented, kind of - but it's pretty easy to miss or misunderstand.

What I had to do is:

• Pass the sqlite3.PARSE_COLNAMES option in the .connect() call, eg.

conn = sqlite3.connect(dbFilePath, detect_types=sqlite3.PARSE_DECLTYPES|sqlite3.PARSE_COLNAMES)

• Put the type I wanted into the query - and for datetime, it's not actually "datetime", but "timestamp":

  sql = 'SELECT jobid, startedTime as "[timestamp]" FROM job'
  
  cursor = conn.cursor()
  try:
      cursor.execute(sql)
      return cursor.fetchall()
  finally:
      cursor.close()
  

If I pass in "datetime" instead it's silently ignored and I still get a string back. Same if I omit the quotes.