parsedatetime

Parse human-readable date/time strings.

Parsedatetime now targets Python 3 and is currently tested with Python 3.9

Use https://github.com/bear/parsedatetime/releases/tag/v2.6 if you need Python 2.7 compatibility.

Installing

You can install parsedatetime using

pip install parsedatetime

Development environment

Development is done using a pipenv virtual environment

make env

Note: black is still listed as a beta library, and as such, must be installed with the --pre flag

Running Tests

From the source directory

make test

To run tests on several Python versions that are installed in the pipenv virtual environment

$ make tox
[... tox creates a virtualenv for every python version and runs tests inside of each]
py39: commands succeeded

The tests depend on PyICU being installed using the pyicu-binary package which removes the source build step. PyICU depends on icu4c which on macOS requires homebrew

brew install icu4c

Using parsedatetime

Detailed examples can be found in the examples directory.

as a time tuple

import parsedatetime
    
cal = parsedatetime.Calendar()
cal.parse("tomorrow")

as a Python datetime object

from datetime import datetime

time_struct, parse_status = cal.parse("tomorrow")
datetime(*time_struct[:6])

with timezone support using pytz

import parsedatetime
from pytz import timezone

cal = parsedatetime.Calendar()
datetime_obj, _ = cal.parseDT(datetimeString="tomorrow", tzinfo=timezone("US/Pacific"))

Documentation

The generated documentation is included by default in the docs directory and can also be viewed online at https://bear.im/code/parsedatetime/docs/index.html

The documentation is generated with

make docs

Notes

The Calendar class has a member property named ptc which is created during the class init method to be an instance of parsedatetime_consts.CalendarConstants().

History

The code in parsedatetime has been implemented over the years in many different languages (C, Clipper, Delphi) as part of different custom/proprietary systems I've worked on. Sadly the previous code is not "open" in any sense of that word.

When I went to work for Open Source Applications Foundation and realized that the Chandler project could benefit from my experience with parsing of date/time text I decided to start from scratch and implement the code using Python and make it truly open.

After working on the initial concept and creating something that could be shown to the Chandler folks, the code has now evolved to its current state with the help of the Chandler folks, most especially Darshana.