👀 Views: 1206 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-09-07

python sorting timestamp logs performance Python

I'm migrating some code and I'm upgrading from an older version and I'm integrating two systems and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer. I've been banging my head against this for hours. Currently developing a security auditing feature that requires sorting user authentication logs by timestamp. The logs are generated from multiple sources and have inconsistent timestamp formats, which is leading to unexpected results when sorting. For example, some timestamps are in ISO 8601 format like `2023-10-05T14:48:00Z`, while others are in a more human-readable form such as `October 5, 2023 2:48 PM`. I've tried using Python's built-in `sorted()` function, but due to the varying formats, it seems to sort based on string comparison rather than actual time. Here’s the code I’ve been using: ```python logs = [ {'user': 'alice', 'timestamp': '2023-10-05T14:48:00Z'}, {'user': 'bob', 'timestamp': 'October 5, 2023 2:48 PM'}, {'user': 'charlie', 'timestamp': '2023-09-30T10:00:00Z'}, ] sorted_logs = sorted(logs, key=lambda x: x['timestamp']) ``` This outputs the logs sorted as strings, which is not what I need. To tackle this, I attempted to parse the timestamps using `dateutil.parser.parse`, but doing so creates additional overhead and slows down the process, especially with a large dataset. Here’s an adaptation I’ve tried: ```python from dateutil import parser sorted_logs = sorted(logs, key=lambda x: parser.parse(x['timestamp'])) ``` Yet, I find the performance lacking as the dataset grows. I've also considered pre-processing the timestamps to a uniform format before sorting, but that approach feels cumbersome. Any recommendations on best practices for efficiently sorting logs with inconsistent timestamp formats? Should I stick with `dateutil` or look for a different approach? Would leveraging a separate sorting library help in this scenario? My development environment is Ubuntu. What am I doing wrong? For context: I'm using Python on Linux. Is there a better approach? This issue appeared after updating to Python 3.10. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. Hoping someone can shed some light on this. I'm using Python stable in this project. Any advice would be much appreciated. Any feedback is welcome!