python strptime format with optional bits

Question

Right now I have:

timestamp = datetime.strptime(date_string, \'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f\')

This works great unless I\'m converting a string tha

Answer 1

I prefer using regex matches instead of try and except. This allows for many fallbacks of acceptable formats.

# full timestamp with milliseconds
match = re.match(r"\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\d+Z", date_string)
if match:
    return datetime.strptime(date_string, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ")

# timestamp missing milliseconds
match = re.match(r"\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}Z", date_string)
if match:
    return datetime.strptime(date_string, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")

# timestamp missing milliseconds & seconds
match = re.match(r"\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T\d{2}:\d{2}Z", date_string)
if match:
    return datetime.strptime(date_string, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%MZ")

# unknown timestamp format
return false

Don't forget to import "re" as well as "datetime" for this method.