Convert Date to Short formate

[John Machin]

On 8/06/2006 5:50 AM, aqmaiya wrote:
> Hello,
>  there is string value 'Dec 06, 2000' I want to convert that string
> date to SHORT FORMAT like '2000-12-06-. Please help me how do I do
> that? I'm new in Jython.
> Thanks,
> aqmaiya
> 

Two ways (at least):

(1) check out the strptime and strftime (p == parse, f == format) 
functions in the time module

In general, the datetime module is much to be preferred for working with 
dates and times -- unless of course you need to mimic functions from the 
C time.h library -- however the datetime module won't be getting a 
strptime until version 2.5, which is still in alpha test.

(2) As you are new to Python, you might like to try your skills with 
basic parts from the Python toolkit, like dictionaries and slicing, and 
write a function yourself, specialised to that particular format. Here 
are some hints:

# example Dec 06, 2000
# ruler   0123456789012

mpart = data[0:3]
# similarly: dpart, ypart

month_dict = {'jan': 1, ....., 'dec': 12}
month_num = month_dict[mpart.lower()] # will work with Dec, dec, DEC

result = '%s-%02d-%s' % (ypart, month_num, dpart)

How much validation you do is up to you :-)

HTH,
John