unconverted data remains: .387000 in Python

Question

I have a datetime that is a string I read from a text file. I want to trim the extra milliseconds off of it, but I want to convert it to a datetime variable first. This is because it may be in different formats depending on what is in the text file. How ever, everything I have tried wants me to already know the format. Please take a look at what I am trying here:

import time, datetime

mytime = "2015-02-16 10:36:41.387000"
myTime = time.strptime(mytime, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f")

myFormat = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

print datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.mktime(time.strptime(mytime, myFormat)))

But this gives me this error:

File "python", line 10, in <module>
ValueError: unconverted data remains: .387000`

Can someone please tell me how to do a normal datetime format? In other languages I can pass in various formats and then set it to a new format without a problem.

Steiger

Answer 1

You are doing it backwards. Try this:

from datetime import datetime

mytime = "2015-02-16 10:36:41.387000"
myTime = datetime.strptime(mytime, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f")

myFormat = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

print "Original", myTime
print "New", myTime.strftime(myFormat)

result:

Original 2015-02-16 10:36:41.387000
New 2015-02-16 10:36:41

Bernadettebernadina

Answer 2

You forgot to reference microseconds in myFormat

myFormat = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f"

Anyway, you can convert it with less steps

from datetime import datetime

mytime = "2015-02-16 10:36:41.387000"
full = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f"
myTime = datetime.strptime(mytime, full)
>>> datetime.datetime(2015, 2, 16, 10, 36, 41, 387000)

Here mytime is in datetime object. If you want print without microseconds, use the strftime

myfmt = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
print datetime.strptime(mytime, full).strftime(myfmt)
>>> 2015-02-16 10:36:41

Koumis

That actually creates a string not a datetime object which is what the OP's code is trying to do – Microdot

Answer 3

alternative solution is using split():

# mytime is str(timestamp)
datetime.datetime.strptime(mytime.split('.')[0], '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

Talaria

Answer 4

mytime = "2015-02-16 10:36:41.387000 "

myTime = time.strptime(mytime, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f")

->

ValueError: unconverted data remains:

it is my case, and what I need is mytime.strip()

Cervin

Answer 5

If nothing else is changing, i.e. the format, except that you are dropping the micro seconds at the end, you don't really need to call strftime. You can just substring it:

mytime = "2015-02-16 10:36:41.387000"
mytime = mytime[:-7]    
print mytime

result:

2015-02-16 10:36:41

Disclaimer: This is only be applicable if you do not to re-format or rearrange anything, and only if you are trying to drop the last bit.

Flank

its too crude for me (11M rows of data), but this is the only answer for ignoring data – Kellby