Parse date with specific format in python

Question

how would you go about parsing a date like that in python:

     Monday, April 1st

I've tried

    datetime_object = datetime.strptime(date.replace("st","").replace("rd","").replace("th","").replace("nd","").strip(), '%A, %B %d')

But obviously it would remove the "nd" from "Monday" and cause an exception

thanks

Answer 1

Don't replace. Strip, from the right using str.rstrip. If the unwanted characters don't exist, the string is returned as is:

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> s = "Monday, April 1st"
>>> datetime.strptime(s.rstrip('strndh'), '%A, %B %d')
datetime.datetime(1900, 4, 1, 0, 0)

_{Note that the day information here (i.e. Monday) is redundant.}

Answer 2

You can use the dateutil module (pip install py-dateutil):

>>> from dateutil import parser
>>> parser.parse("Monday, April 1st")
datetime.datetime(2017, 4, 1, 0, 0)

Answer 3

Also if all your string doesn't have the same length:

a = "Monday, April 1st"
if not a[-1].isdigit():
    a = a[:-2]
datetime_object = datetime.strptime(a, '%A, %B %d')