python ast.literal_eval and datetime

Question

I have a string \"{\'datetime\': datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 21, 0, 56, 58)}\" and I want to convert this to the object it represents. Using ast.literal_

Answer 1

Use repr(datetime.datetime.utcnow()) to save in your dict or your file. Look,

>>> import datetime
>>> oarg = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
>>> oarg
datetime.datetime(2013, 2, 6, 12, 39, 51, 709024)
>>> butiwantthis = repr(oarg)
>>> butiwantthis
'datetime.datetime(2013, 2, 6, 12, 39, 51, 709024)'
>>> eval(oarg)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
TypeError: eval() arg 1 must be a string, bytes or code object
>>> eval(butiwantthis)
datetime.datetime(2013, 2, 6, 12, 39, 51, 709024)

Cool! eval() works!

Take care with import

>>> from datetime import datetime, date, time
>>> oarg = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
AttributeError: type object 'datetime.datetime' has no attribute 'datetime'
>>> oarg = datetime.utcnow()
>>> oarg
datetime.datetime(2013, 2, 6, 12, 41, 51, 870458)
>>> butiwantthis = repr(oarg)
>>> butiwantthis
'datetime.datetime(2013, 2, 6, 12, 41, 51, 870458)'
>>> eval(butiwantthis)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
  File "", line 1, in 
AttributeError: type object 'datetime.datetime' has no attribute 'datetime'
>>> # wrong import

Perfect!

Ps: Python3.3