Getting the closest date to a given date

Question

Given this base date:

base_date = \"10/29 06:58 AM\"

I want to find a tuple within the list that contains the closest date to the bas

Answer 1

decorate, filter, find the closest date, undecorate

>>> base_date = "10/29 06:58 AM"
>>> list_date = [
...     ('10/30 02:18 PM', '-103', '-107'),
...     ('10/30 02:17 PM', '+100', '-110'),
...     ('10/29 02:15 AM', '-101', '-109')
... ]
>>> import datetime
>>> fmt = '%m/%d %H:%M %p'
>>> base_d = datetime.datetime.strptime(base_date, fmt)
>>> candidates = ((datetime.datetime.strptime(d, fmt), d, x, y) for d, x, y in list_date)
>>> candidates = min((dt, d, x, y) for dt, d, x, y in candidates if dt > base_d)
>>> print candidates[1:]
('10/30 02:17 PM', '+100', '-110')