Python: Parse a string representing time and returns the structure time

Last update on April 22 2025 12:47:09 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

63. Parse Time String

Write a Python program to parse a string representing time and return the time structure.

Sample Solution:

Python Code:

# Import the time module
import time

# Define a string representing a time
time_string = "22 January, 2020"
# Print a message indicating the string representing time
print("String representing time:", time_string)
# Parse the time string using the specified format and store the result in the variable 'result'
result = time.strptime(time_string, "%d %B, %Y")
# Print the result
print(result)

# Define another string representing a time
time_string = "30 Nov 00"
# Print a message indicating the string representing time
print("\nString representing time:", time_string)
# Parse the time string using the specified format and store the result in the variable 'result'
result = time.strptime(time_string, "%d %b %y")
# Print the result
print(result)

# Define another string representing a time
time_string = '04/11/15 11:55:23'
# Print a message indicating the string representing time
print("\nString representing time:", time_string)
# Parse the time string using the specified format and store the result in the variable 'result'
result = time.strptime(time_string, "%m/%d/%y %H:%M:%S")
# Print the result
print(result)

# Define another string representing a time
time_string = '12-11-2019'
# Print a message indicating the string representing time
print("\nString representing time:", time_string)
# Parse the time string using the specified format and store the result in the variable 'result'
result = time.strptime(time_string, "%m-%d-%Y")
# Print the result
print(result)

# Define another string representing a time
time_string = '13::55::26'
# Print a message indicating the string representing time
print("\nString representing time:", time_string)
# Parse the time string using the specified format and store the result in the variable 'result'
result = time.strptime(time_string, "%H::%M::%S")
# Print the result
print(result)

Output:

String representing time: 22 January, 2020
time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=22, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=22, tm_isdst=-1)

String representing time: 30 Nov 00
time.struct_time(tm_year=2000, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=335, tm_isdst=-1)

String representing time: 04/11/15 11:55:23
time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=11, tm_min=55, tm_sec=23, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=101, tm_isdst=-1)

String representing time: 12-11-2019
time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=345, tm_isdst=-1)

String representing time: 13::55::26
time.struct_time(tm_year=1900, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=13, tm_min=55, tm_sec=26, tm_wday=0, tm_yday=1, tm_isdst=-1)

Explanation:

In the exercise above,

The code imports the "time" module, which provides functions for working with time.
It defines several strings representing different formats of time.
It prints each string representing the time before parsing.
It uses the "time.strptime()" function to parse each time string using the specified format.
It prints the 'result' of each parsing operation. The 'result' is a time tuple containing various components such as year, month, day, hour, minute, second, etc., depending on the format of the input string.

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a Python program to parse various time strings into time.struct_time objects using time.strptime and then display each component.
Write a Python script that takes a time string in a non-standard format and returns the parsed time structure.
Write a Python function to convert multiple time strings into struct_time and then verify the conversion by reformatting them.
Write a Python program to parse a time string with ambiguous delimiters and then output the corresponding time.struct_time with error handling.

Go to:

Previous: Write a Python program that takes a tuple containing 9 elements corresponding to structure time as an argument and returns a string representing it.
Next: Python File Input Output Exercises Home

Python Code Editor:

Contribute your code and comments through Disqus.