[python] Parse rfc3339 date strings in Python?

I have a datasets where all the dates have the following format:

2012-10-09T19:00:55Z

I'd like to be able to be able to use methods like .weekday on them. How do I convert them to the proper format in Python?

You should have a look at moment which is a python port of the excellent js lib momentjs.

One advantage of it is the support of ISO 8601 strings formats, as well as a generic "% format" :

import moment
time_string='2012-10-09T19:00:55Z'

m = moment.date(time_string, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')
print m.format('YYYY-M-D H:M')
print m.weekday

Result:

2012-10-09 19:10
2

This has already been answered here: How do I translate a ISO 8601 datetime string into a Python datetime object?

d = datetime.datetime.strptime( "2012-10-09T19:00:55Z", "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ" )
d.weekday()

You can use dateutil.parser.parse (install with python -m pip install python-dateutil) to parse strings into datetime objects.

dateutil.parser.parse will attempt to guess the format of your string, if you know the exact format in advance then you can use datetime.strptime which you supply a format string to (see Brent Washburne's answer).

from dateutil.parser import parse

a = "2012-10-09T19:00:55Z"

b = parse(a)

print(b.weekday())
# 1 (equal to a Tuesday)