New submission from Tim Bell: Python 3.6 documentation for email.utils.parsedate_to_datetime() says "Performs the same function as parsedate(), but on success returns a datetime." The docs for parsedate() say "If it succeeds in parsing the date...; otherwise None will be returned." By implication, parsedate_to_datetime() should return None when the date can't be parsed.
There are two different failure modes for parsedate_to_datetime(): 1. When _parsedate_tz() fails to parse the date and returns None: >>> from email.utils import parsedate_to_datetime >>> parsedate_to_datetime('0') Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "/usr/lib/python3.6/email/utils.py", line 210, in parsedate_to_datetime *dtuple, tz = _parsedate_tz(data) TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not iterable 2. When _parsedate_tz() succeeds, but conversion to datetime.datetime fails: >>> parsedate_to_datetime('Tue, 06 Jun 2017 27:39:33 +0600') Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "/usr/lib/python3.6/email/utils.py", line 214, in parsedate_to_datetime tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(seconds=tz))) ValueError: hour must be in 0..23 Note that this second case is the one that led me to this issue. I am using the email package to parse spam emails for subsequent analysis, and a certain group of spam emails contain invalid hour fields in their Date header. I don't require the invalid Date header to be converted to a datetime.datetime, but accessing email_message['date'] to access the header value as a string triggers the ValueError exception. I can work around this with a custom email policy, but the observed behaviour does seem to contradict the documented behaviour. Also, in relation to https://bugs.python.org/issue15925, r.david.murray commented "Oh, and I'm purposely allowing parsedate_to_datetime throw exceptions. I suppose that should be documented, but that's a separate issue." However, no argument for why parsedate_to_datetime throwing exceptions is desired was given. ---------- components: email messages: 296137 nosy: barry, r.david.murray, timb07 priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: email.utils.parsedate_to_datetime() should return None when date cannot be parsed type: behavior versions: Python 3.5, Python 3.6 _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue30681> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com