Converting International Dates

There are a large number of different date fromats. Fortunately, the international date format is taking over. This format specifies that dates should be formatted as "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS". Where the "T" divides the string into date and time and the other letters stand for Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, and Second, respectively. This date is great for international data exchange but it is unfamiliar to most folks. To use the date on a map, we areally need a freindlier version.

import csv

TheFile=open("C:\\Users\\Jim\\Desktop\\GSP 318\\Lab07/all_hour.csv","r") # open the file for reading (thus the "r")

NumLines=0
TheCSVReader=csv.reader(TheFile) # create an object to read the file as a CSV file
NumRows=0
for TheRow in TheCSVReader: # Loop on each line in the file 
	if (NumRows>0): # skip the header line

		TheDateTimeString=TheRow[0] # get the datetime string
		print(TheDateTimeString) # print the string for debugging
	
	NumRows+=1

TheFile.close()

print("Read "+format(NumRows)+" rows from the file")

Note that the date time string has a "T" to divide the date and time. Use the "split()" function to break up this string.

	TheDateTimeElements=TheDateTimeString.split("T") # split the date and time into separate strings
	
	TheDateString=TheDateTimeElements[0] # get the date string
	TheTimeString=TheDateTimeElements[1] # get the time string
	

Next, we can use the dash character to split up the date and obtain strings for each of the date elements.

	TheDateElements=TheDateString.split("-") # break up the date elements
	
	TheYearString=TheDateElements[0]
	TheMonthString=TheDateElements[1]
	TheDayString=TheDateElements[2]

Now we can reformat our date to be in whatever format we desire.

Additional Resources

Python Documentation: String functions

Python Documentation: Defining Functions