Python Checking Date Format Failing to Work











up vote
0
down vote

favorite












My program takes in data in the form of:



LASTNAME|FIRSTNAME|GENDER|DOB


The first thing I do is use regular expressions to detect the delimiter and split the fields. I allow a space, comma, or pipe as a delimiter. I know which field is DOB and have printed it out to ensure I'm not dealing with the wrong field.



My try code is as follows:



try:
#check if the fields are good
fields = re.split(r'[ ,|]+', line)
except:
#if not good: put it on the failure list
flist.append(line.replace('n', ''))

LastName = fields[0]
FirstName = fields[1]
Gender = fields[2]
DOB = fields[3]

#one last try... make sure the DOB is good
try:
datetime.datetime.strptime(DOB, '%m/%d/%Y')
except:
flist.append(line.replace('n', ''))
raise ValueError("DATE NOT IN RIGHT FORMAT")


I have fed the program multiple lines, and the one in particular I'm feeding:



NAME|FAKE|M|09/20/1987

ValueError: time data '09/20/1987' does not match format '%d/%m/%Y'


I've printed out the fields and I've tried converting "DOB" to a string. I've tried appending the .date() to the end as well. I'm really not sure why it would be failing.










share|improve this question




















  • 3




    What's the 20th month? It looks like you're getting US-style dates, MM/DD/YYYY.
    – jonrsharpe
    Nov 20 at 17:57












  • Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:17















up vote
0
down vote

favorite












My program takes in data in the form of:



LASTNAME|FIRSTNAME|GENDER|DOB


The first thing I do is use regular expressions to detect the delimiter and split the fields. I allow a space, comma, or pipe as a delimiter. I know which field is DOB and have printed it out to ensure I'm not dealing with the wrong field.



My try code is as follows:



try:
#check if the fields are good
fields = re.split(r'[ ,|]+', line)
except:
#if not good: put it on the failure list
flist.append(line.replace('n', ''))

LastName = fields[0]
FirstName = fields[1]
Gender = fields[2]
DOB = fields[3]

#one last try... make sure the DOB is good
try:
datetime.datetime.strptime(DOB, '%m/%d/%Y')
except:
flist.append(line.replace('n', ''))
raise ValueError("DATE NOT IN RIGHT FORMAT")


I have fed the program multiple lines, and the one in particular I'm feeding:



NAME|FAKE|M|09/20/1987

ValueError: time data '09/20/1987' does not match format '%d/%m/%Y'


I've printed out the fields and I've tried converting "DOB" to a string. I've tried appending the .date() to the end as well. I'm really not sure why it would be failing.










share|improve this question




















  • 3




    What's the 20th month? It looks like you're getting US-style dates, MM/DD/YYYY.
    – jonrsharpe
    Nov 20 at 17:57












  • Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:17













up vote
0
down vote

favorite









up vote
0
down vote

favorite











My program takes in data in the form of:



LASTNAME|FIRSTNAME|GENDER|DOB


The first thing I do is use regular expressions to detect the delimiter and split the fields. I allow a space, comma, or pipe as a delimiter. I know which field is DOB and have printed it out to ensure I'm not dealing with the wrong field.



My try code is as follows:



try:
#check if the fields are good
fields = re.split(r'[ ,|]+', line)
except:
#if not good: put it on the failure list
flist.append(line.replace('n', ''))

LastName = fields[0]
FirstName = fields[1]
Gender = fields[2]
DOB = fields[3]

#one last try... make sure the DOB is good
try:
datetime.datetime.strptime(DOB, '%m/%d/%Y')
except:
flist.append(line.replace('n', ''))
raise ValueError("DATE NOT IN RIGHT FORMAT")


I have fed the program multiple lines, and the one in particular I'm feeding:



NAME|FAKE|M|09/20/1987

ValueError: time data '09/20/1987' does not match format '%d/%m/%Y'


I've printed out the fields and I've tried converting "DOB" to a string. I've tried appending the .date() to the end as well. I'm really not sure why it would be failing.










share|improve this question















My program takes in data in the form of:



LASTNAME|FIRSTNAME|GENDER|DOB


The first thing I do is use regular expressions to detect the delimiter and split the fields. I allow a space, comma, or pipe as a delimiter. I know which field is DOB and have printed it out to ensure I'm not dealing with the wrong field.



My try code is as follows:



try:
#check if the fields are good
fields = re.split(r'[ ,|]+', line)
except:
#if not good: put it on the failure list
flist.append(line.replace('n', ''))

LastName = fields[0]
FirstName = fields[1]
Gender = fields[2]
DOB = fields[3]

#one last try... make sure the DOB is good
try:
datetime.datetime.strptime(DOB, '%m/%d/%Y')
except:
flist.append(line.replace('n', ''))
raise ValueError("DATE NOT IN RIGHT FORMAT")


I have fed the program multiple lines, and the one in particular I'm feeding:



NAME|FAKE|M|09/20/1987

ValueError: time data '09/20/1987' does not match format '%d/%m/%Y'


I've printed out the fields and I've tried converting "DOB" to a string. I've tried appending the .date() to the end as well. I'm really not sure why it would be failing.







python python-datetime






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited Nov 20 at 17:58









jonrsharpe

76.6k11100207




76.6k11100207










asked Nov 20 at 17:56









Mike Thoma

192




192








  • 3




    What's the 20th month? It looks like you're getting US-style dates, MM/DD/YYYY.
    – jonrsharpe
    Nov 20 at 17:57












  • Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:17














  • 3




    What's the 20th month? It looks like you're getting US-style dates, MM/DD/YYYY.
    – jonrsharpe
    Nov 20 at 17:57












  • Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:17








3




3




What's the 20th month? It looks like you're getting US-style dates, MM/DD/YYYY.
– jonrsharpe
Nov 20 at 17:57






What's the 20th month? It looks like you're getting US-style dates, MM/DD/YYYY.
– jonrsharpe
Nov 20 at 17:57














Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
– Mike Thoma
Nov 20 at 21:17




Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
– Mike Thoma
Nov 20 at 21:17












1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes

















up vote
1
down vote













@jonrsharpe is right. You're trying to parse a MM/DD/YYYY string as DD/MM/YYYY. If all of your dates are in the same format, you should be using '%d/%m/%Y' as your format string.






share|improve this answer

















  • 1




    Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:16













Your Answer






StackExchange.ifUsing("editor", function () {
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function () {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function () {
StackExchange.snippets.init();
});
});
}, "code-snippets");

StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "1"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});

function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: true,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: 10,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});


}
});














draft saved

draft discarded


















StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fstackoverflow.com%2fquestions%2f53398830%2fpython-checking-date-format-failing-to-work%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown

























1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes








1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes








up vote
1
down vote













@jonrsharpe is right. You're trying to parse a MM/DD/YYYY string as DD/MM/YYYY. If all of your dates are in the same format, you should be using '%d/%m/%Y' as your format string.






share|improve this answer

















  • 1




    Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:16

















up vote
1
down vote













@jonrsharpe is right. You're trying to parse a MM/DD/YYYY string as DD/MM/YYYY. If all of your dates are in the same format, you should be using '%d/%m/%Y' as your format string.






share|improve this answer

















  • 1




    Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:16















up vote
1
down vote










up vote
1
down vote









@jonrsharpe is right. You're trying to parse a MM/DD/YYYY string as DD/MM/YYYY. If all of your dates are in the same format, you should be using '%d/%m/%Y' as your format string.






share|improve this answer












@jonrsharpe is right. You're trying to parse a MM/DD/YYYY string as DD/MM/YYYY. If all of your dates are in the same format, you should be using '%d/%m/%Y' as your format string.







share|improve this answer












share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer










answered Nov 20 at 18:44









Wieschie

169110




169110








  • 1




    Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:16
















  • 1




    Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
    – Mike Thoma
    Nov 20 at 21:16










1




1




Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
– Mike Thoma
Nov 20 at 21:16






Well that's embarrassing. I was banging my head against the wall figuring out why some records were processing fine and others weren't. I read through the documentation tons of times and failed to notice the mix up. Thank you so much!
– Mike Thoma
Nov 20 at 21:16




















draft saved

draft discarded




















































Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow!


  • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

But avoid



  • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

  • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.





Some of your past answers have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from answering.


Please pay close attention to the following guidance:


  • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

But avoid



  • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

  • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




draft saved


draft discarded














StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fstackoverflow.com%2fquestions%2f53398830%2fpython-checking-date-format-failing-to-work%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown





















































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown

































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown







Popular posts from this blog

404 Error Contact Form 7 ajax form submitting

How to know if a Active Directory user can login interactively

Refactoring coordinates for Minecraft Pi buildings written in Python