[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > I am new to Python and am working on my first program. I am trying > to compare a date I found on a website to todays date. The problem I > have is the website only shows 3 letter month name and the date. > Example: Jun 15
The 'datetime' module in the standard library will do the job of creating date objects that can be compared. <URL:http://docs.python.org/lib/module-datetime> Construct a date from arbitrary values with datetime.date(), get the current date with datetime.date.today(). The objects returned by those functions can be compared directly. As for how to get from a string representation to a date object, you're now talking about parsing strings to extract date/time information. This isn't provided in the standard library, largely because there's no "one obvious way to do it". An existing PEP proposing adding such functionality has since been withdrawn: <URL:http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0321/> Parsing datetime values from strings is fuzzy and prone to lots of assumptions and errors, so the programmer must choose their own set of assumptions. One popular implementation of a specific set of assumptions is the egenix 'mxDateTime' module. <URL:http://www.egenix.com/files/python/mxDateTime.html> That module predates (and was largely an inspiration for) the standard library 'datetime' module; however, I don't know if the egenix module uses objects that can be used with those from the standard library. -- \ "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their | `\ home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of | _o__) Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list