Python - converting strings in an array to dates

Question

I have read an array of strings from a TXT file and saved it as an array (of over thousand values) using such a line:

dates = np.genfromtxt('filename.txt', delimiter=";", usecols=(0), dtype=None)

Next, I would like to convert strings into dates. I tried to use the line:

dates2 = dt.datetime.strptime([dates], '"%Y-%m-%d"').date()

however, I got an error:

TypeError: must be string, not list

I figured out that such a code works fine:

data1='"2010-02-28"'
data1_1 = dt.datetime.strptime(data1, '"%Y-%m-%d"').date()

How should I deal with the described problem?

Answer 1

Note to future readers: Please do not edit this answer. '"%Y-%m-%d"' is not a mistake. OP's dates are surrounded by quotes.

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dates is a list of strings. So if you want to create a list of dates from its elements:

dates_list = [dt.datetime.strptime(date, '"%Y-%m-%d"').date() for date in dates]

This line iterates over the strings in the dates list and using list comprehension to create a new list of dates.

Answer 2

You can use split for faster result:

from datetime import datetime
today = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d").split('-')