python date.min does not convert back. Why?

Question

Consider this code:

datestring = date.min.strftime("%d-%m-%Y")
date = datetime.strptime(datestring,"%d-%m-%Y")

This raises the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):   File "D:/Dev/foo.py", line 37, in <module>
    datestring = date.min.strftime("%d-%m-%Y") ValueError: year=1 is before 1900; the datetime strftime() methods require year >= 1900

Why is the min date not 1900 then???

I'm using storing date.min in the init of a class as to set it to an empty date sortof. When I persist this to the sqlite database, I do not have a Null date this way.

I do this because when I read back an empty date from the db, it raises an error in dbapi2.py in the convertdate function

How do you guys solve this?

Answer 1

You could stick the "ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DD":

>>> from datetime import date, datetime
>>> date_str = date.min.isoformat()
>>> print date_str
0001-01-01
>>> date_obj = datetime.strptime(date_str,"%Y-%m-%d")
>>> print date_obj
0001-01-01 00:00:00