You seem to be using an ISO 8601 formatted dateTime. This format is used in many places, including the GPS eXchange Format.
[-]CCYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss[Z|(+|-)hh:mm]
Using datetime:
import datetime
a = datetime.datetime.strptime("2013-10-05T01:21:07Z", "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")
b = datetime.datetime.strptime("2013-10-05T01:21:16Z", "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")
c = b - a
print(c)
Advantages:
- Built-in to Python Standard Library
- Object-oriented interface
Disadvantages:
- Need to manually handle other valid ISO 8601 representations such as '2013-10-05T01:21:16+00:00'
- Throws exception for leap seconds such as '2012-06-30T23:59:60Z'
Using python-dateutil:
import dateutil.parser
a = dateutil.parser.parse("2013-10-05T01:21:07Z")
b = dateutil.parser.parse("2013-10-05T01:21:16Z")
c = b - a
print(c)
Advantages:
- Automagically handles pretty much any time format
Disadvantages:
- Needs python-dateutil library (pip install python-dateutil)
- Throws exception for leap seconds such as '2012-06-30T23:59:60Z'
Using time.strptime and time.mktime as suggested by Alfe
Advantages:
- Built-in to Python Standard Library
- Can parse leap seconds such as '2012-06-30T23:59:60Z'
Disadvantages:
- Need to manually handle other valid ISO 8601 representations such as '2013-10-05T01:21:16+00:00'
- Loss of one leap second between '2012-06-30T23:59:60Z' and '2012-07-01T00:00:00Z' (unavoidable without knowing when leap seconds will next occur)
