How to convert python timestamp string to epoch?

Question

I have the following string:

mytime = \"2009-03-08T00:27:31.807Z\"

How do I convert it to epoch in python?

I tried:

Answer 1

Python 3.7+ The string format in question can be parsed by strptime:

from datetime import datetime
datetime.strptime("2009-03-08T00:27:31.807Z", '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f%z')
>>> datetime.datetime(2009, 3, 8, 0, 27, 31, 807000, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)

Another option using the built-in datetime.fromisoformat(): As mentioned in this thread linked by @jfs, fromisoformat() doesn't parse the 'Z' character to UTC although this is part of the RFC3339 definitions. A little work-around can make it work - some will consider this nasty but it's efficient after all.

from datetime import datetime
mytime = "2009-03-08T00:27:31.807Z"
datetime.fromisoformat(mytime.replace("Z", "+00:00")).timestamp()
>>> 1236472051.807