👀 Views: 32 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-16

python date-parsing dateutil Python

I'm working on a personal project and I'm currently working on a project where I need to parse date strings in ISO 8601 format using Python, specifically with the `dateutil` library... The scenario arises when dealing with ambiguous timezone indicators. For example, I have the following date strings: ```python from dateutil import parser date_strings = [ '2023-10-05T14:30:00Z', # UTC '2023-10-05T14:30:00+02:00', # GMT+2 '2023-10-05T14:30:00' # No timezone specified ] for date_str in date_strings: try: parsed_date = parser.isoparse(date_str) print(parsed_date) except ValueError as e: print(f"behavior parsing '{date_str}': {e}") ``` The first two date strings parse correctly, but the last one is somewhat problematic. When I run this code, I get the following output: ``` 2023-10-05 14:30:00+00:00 2023-10-05 14:30:00+02:00 behavior parsing '2023-10-05T14:30:00': No time zone information found ``` My main concern is how to handle the case where a timezone is not provided. I want to treat these ambiguous dates as local time without explicitly assigning UTC or any other timezone. Is there a way to specify a default timezone when using `dateutil.parser`? Additionally, is there a best practice for ensuring consistency across date handling in my application? I've read that using `pendulum` could also be a solution for better timezone management. Should I consider switching libraries? Any help would be appreciated! This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Am I missing something obvious? I'm on macOS using the latest version of Python. Thanks for your help in advance! I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Python. Thanks for taking the time to read this! I'm on Ubuntu 20.04 using the latest version of Python. Thanks for any help you can provide!