Question

I am new to python and i have written a script that converts a string date coming in to a datetime format going out. My problem is that cannot convert the datetime object back to a string for manipulation. i have a date eg 2011-08-10 14:50:10 all i need to to is add a T between the date and time and a Z at the end. unfortunately im using python 2.3 as my application will only accept that.

my code is as follows:

fromValue= ''
fromValue = document.Get(self._generic3)
fromValue = fromValue[:fromValue.rindex(" ")]
fromValue = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.mktime(time.strptime(fromValue,"%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S")))

Answer 1

It looks like you are trying to format the datetime in ISO-8601 format.
For this purpose, use the isoformat method.

import datetime as dt 
try:
    import email.utils as eu
except ImportError:
    import email.Utils as eu  # for Python 2.3

date_string="Fri, 08 Aug 2011 14:15:10 -0400"
ttuple=eu.parsedate(date_string)
date=dt.datetime(*ttuple[:6])
print(date.isoformat()+'Z')

yields

2011-08-08T14:15:10Z

Here is link to isoformat and parsedate in the Python2.3 docs.