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

datetime(*map(int, re.findall('\d+', date_string)))

can parse both '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f' and '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'. It is too permissive if your input is not filtered.

It is quick-and-dirty but sometimes strptime() is too slow. It can be used if you know that the input has the expected date format.