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Convert date string (from gmail) to timestamp | Python

I want to save the received date of emails from a Gmail account into a time-series database.
The problem is that I cannot convert the string that I got from the email to timestamp.
I tried this:
from datetime import datetime
date1 = 'Thu, 28 May 2020 08:15:58 -0700 (PDT)'
date1_obj = datetime.strptime(date1, '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z %Z')
print(date1_obj)
But got this error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/format_date.py", line 11, in <module>
date1_obj = datetime.strptime(date1, '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z %Z')
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.7.7/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/_strptime.py", line 577, in _strptime_datetime
tt, fraction, gmtoff_fraction = _strptime(data_string, format)
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.7.7/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/_strptime.py", line 359, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data 'Thu, 28 May 2020 08:15:58 -0700 (PDT)' does not match format '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z %Z'
Tried with or without parenthesis wrapping Timezone.
Read a lot, but nothing about how to deal with date strings containing "(PDT)" or any other timezones. It's very important to get the right date... If I run the same code without "(PDT)", got an incorrect time (because of my local time).
I know I can use string methods to manipulate it and convert to a right datetime, but I feel like this would be flexible.
Sorry for my terrible English.
Thank you!

you could use dateutil's parser to parse the string, automatically inferring the format:
import dateutil
s = 'Thu, 28 May 2020 08:15:58 -0700 (PDT)'
dt = dateutil.parser.parse(s)
# datetime.datetime(2020, 5, 28, 8, 15, 58, tzinfo=tzoffset('PDT', -25200))
dt.utcoffset().total_seconds()
# -25200.0
Note that although the timezone is given a name ("PDT"), it is only a UTC offset of 25200 s. In many cases that is sufficient, at least to convert to UTC.
If you need the specific timezone (e.g. to account for DST transitions etc.), you can use a mapping dict that you supply to dateutil.parser.parse as tzinfos:
tzmap = {'PDT': dateutil.tz.gettz('US/Pacific'),
'PST': dateutil.tz.gettz('US/Pacific')}
dt = dateutil.parser.parse(s, tzinfos=tzmap)
# datetime.datetime(2020, 5, 28, 8, 15, 58, tzinfo=tzfile('US/Pacific'))
dt.utcoffset().total_seconds()
# -25200.0

Close, you forgot to put the bracket around the last entry.
date1_obj = datetime.strptime(date1, '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z (%Z)')

Well, after all your answers, which were very helpful, I finally solved.
This is how:
>>> from email.utils import parsedate_tz, mktime_tz
>>> date = 'Thu, 28 May 2020 08:15:58 -0700 (PST)'
>>> timestamp = mktime_tz(parsedate_tz(date))
>>> timestamp
1590678958
>>>
I checked that timestamp, and stands to 12:15:58 local time, what it's exactly what I was looking for.
Thank you very much to everybody who took a minute to answer.

If it does not work even if you enclose %Z in brackets then the problem lies within the %Z directive
https://docs.python.org/3/library/time.html
Support for the %Z directive is based on the values contained in
tzname and whether daylight is true. Because of this, it is
platform-specific except for recognizing UTC and GMT which are always
known (and are considered to be non-daylight savings timezones).
In example the following results in a ValueError for me (in Europe)
date1 = 'Thu, 28 May 2020 08:15:58 -0700 (PST)'
date1_obj = datetime.strptime(date1, '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z (%Z)')
print(date1_obj)
While with GMT it the output is 2020-05-28 08:15:58-07:00
date1 = 'Thu, 28 May 2020 08:15:58 -0700 (GMT)'
date1_obj = datetime.strptime(date1, '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z (%Z)')
print(date1_obj)
Based on your comment under this answer you could split the string if the Timezone bit is not important:
date1 = 'Thu, 28 May 2020 08:15:58 -0700 (GMT)'
date1_obj = datetime.strptime(date1.split(" (")[0], '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z')

Python : Converting string to datetime [duplicate]

I was trying to convert a string to a datetime object.
The string I got from a news feed is in the following format:
"Thu, 16 Oct 2014 01:16:17 EDT"
I tried using datetime.strptime() to convert it.
i.e.,
datetime.strptime('Thu, 16 Oct 2014 01:16:17 EDT','%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z')
And got the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
datetime.strptime('Thu, 16 Oct 2014 01:16:17 EDT','%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z')
File "C:\Anaconda\lib_strptime.py", line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data 'Thu, 16 Oct 2014 01:16:17 EDT' does not match
format '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z'
However, if I tried the string without "EDT", it worked.
i.e.,
datetime.strptime('Thu, 16 Oct 2014 01:16:17','%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S')
Does anyone know how to parse that "EDT" part?

To parse the date in RFC 2822 format, you could use email package:
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from email.utils import parsedate_tz, mktime_tz
timestamp = mktime_tz(parsedate_tz("Thu, 16 Oct 2014 01:16:17 EDT"))
# -> 1413436577
utc_dt = datetime(1970, 1, 1) + timedelta(seconds=timestamp)
# -> datetime.datetime(2014, 10, 16, 5, 16, 17)
Note: parsedate_tz() assumes that EDT corresponds to -0400 UTC offset but it might be incorrect in Australia where EDT is +1100 (AEDT is used by pytz in this case) i.e., a timezone abbreviation may be ambiguous. See Parsing date/time string with timezone abbreviated name in Python?
Related Python bug: %Z in strptime doesn't match EST and others.
If your computer uses POSIX timestamps (likely), and you are sure the input date is within an acceptable range for your system (not too far into the future/past), and you don't need to preserve the microsecond precision then you could use datetime.utcfromtimestamp:
from datetime import datetime
from email.utils import parsedate_tz, mktime_tz
timestamp = mktime_tz(parsedate_tz("Thu, 16 Oct 2014 01:16:17 EDT"))
# -> 1413436577
utc_dt = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(timestamp)
# -> datetime.datetime(2014, 10, 16, 5, 16, 17)

The email.utils.parsedate_tz() solution is good for 3-letter timezones but it does not work for 4 letters such as AEDT or CEST. If you need a mix, the answer under Parsing date/time string with timezone abbreviated name in Python? works for both with the most commonly used time zones.

string to date - format string issue

I am need to convert a date in below format into different format for displaying purpose. But before that I am trying to convert the date in string to time object, but not able to do so.
>>> time.strptime("Thu Mar 13 23:15:13 2014 EDT", '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y %Z')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/_strptime.py", line 293, in strptime
raise ValueError("time data did not match format: data=%s fmt=%s" %
ValueError: time data did not match format: data=Thu Mar 13 23:15:13 2014 EDT fmt=%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y %Z
Did a trial and error and it's the '%Z' causing the issue, below works fine (just %Z is removed)
>>> time.strptime("Thu Mar 13 23:15:13 2014", '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y')
(2014, 3, 13, 23, 15, 13, 3, 72, -1)
Python wiki (https://docs.python.org/2/library/time.html) says timezone specifier is %Z, then what is the issue here. Please help me find.
Python version: 2.4.3

From the Python documentation. https://docs.python.org/2/library/time.html#time.strptime
Support for the %Z directive is based on the values contained in tzname and whether daylight is true. Because of this, it is platform-specific except for recognizing UTC and GMT which are always known (and are considered to be non-daylight savings timezones).
Which basically says that time.strptime() will only recognize timezones that are listed in time.tzname
Hope this helps

%z will only work for numeric timezone in python 3.x, here is a fix for python 2.x:
Instead of using:
datetime.strptime(t,'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M %z')
use the timedelta to account for the timezone, like this:
from datetime import datetime,timedelta
def dt_parse(t):
ret = datetime.strptime(t[0:16],'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M')
if t[18]=='+':
ret+=timedelta(hours=int(t[19:22]),minutes=int(t[23:]))
elif t[18]=='-':
ret-=timedelta(hours=int(t[19:22]),minutes=int(t[23:]))
return ret

Cannot parse the date in Python

I need to parse date and time. Here is what I've got:
import time
a = time.strptime('Apr 28 2013 23:01', "%b %d %y %H:%M")
print a
But it gives me
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/aaa/Documents/python_test.py", line 17, in <module>
a = time.strptime('Apr 28 2013 23:01', "%b %d %y %H:%M")
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/_strptime.py", line 467, in _strptime_time
return _strptime(data_string, format)[0]
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/_strptime.py", line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data 'Apr 28 2013 23:01' does not match format '%b %d %y %H:%M'
What am I doing wrong?

%y should be %Y for a 4 digit year...
From the docs:
%y Year without century as a decimal number [00,99].
%Y Year with century as a decimal number.

You can
import time
a = time.strptime('Apr 28 2013 23:01', "%b %d %Y %H:%M")
print time.strftime("%d/%m/%Y",a)
with Y. It is followed by a conversion line of code, and gives result
28/04/2013

Jon's answer is of course correct, but as you noticed these things can be difficult to find.
As a general suggestion for debugging strptime problems I recommend printing out a known datetime using the format string you use for parsing:
from datetime import datetime
d = datetime(2013, 4, 28, 23, 1)
print d.strftime("%b %d %y %H:%M")
print 'Apr 28 2013 23:01'
A visual comparison of the output lines:
Apr 28 13 23:01
Apr 28 2013 23:01
quickly finds the problem and also works when your format string is correct, but you are working with a different locale (e.g. in Spanish where it would expect 'Abr' instead of 'Apr')

Parsing the string to Dates in python [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Parse date and format it using python?
I'm very new to Python. I have the following two strings :
Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:07:07 GMT
2012-10-29 12:57:08
I wish there could be any date parsing lib available in python which does parse the above two strings to something like this:
2012-10-29 12:57:08
So that I can compare them. Note that the comparison should be able to produce the result like integer comparison. Like 1 is less than 2, so the same way 2012-10-29 12:57:08 is less than 2012-10-29 13:57:08
Are there any easy to do so in python?
Thanks in advance.

Use the dateutil module for general date parsing:
>>> from dateutil.parser import parse
>>> parse('Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:07:07 GMT')
datetime.datetime(2012, 10, 29, 13, 7, 7, tzinfo=tzutc())
>>> parse('2012-10-29 12:57:08')
datetime.datetime(2012, 10, 29, 12, 57, 8)
datetime.datetime objects can be compared in various ways.
If you know the exact format of each date string to be parsed, you can also do the parsing more explicitly using the datetime.datetime.strptime() method:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.datetime.strptime('Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:07:07 GMT', '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z')
datetime.datetime(2012, 10, 29, 13, 7, 7)
Note however that that method ignores timezones!

Yes, time.strptime can convert the text to date representations. From there you can use strftime to print it how you like.
>>> a = '2012-10-29 12:57:08'
>>> time.strptime(a, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=12, tm_min=57, tm_sec=8, tm_wday=0, tm_yday=303, tm_isdst=-1)
>>> b = 'Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:07:07 GMT'
>>> time.strptime(b, '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z')
time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=13, tm_min=7, tm_sec=7, tm_wday=0, tm_yday=303, tm_isdst=0)

The datetime module in python, with its strptime function (string parse), can do that.
For example, you can use the function like this:
somestring = '2004-03-13T03:00:00Z'
result = datetime.datetime.strptime(somestring, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')
Docs here.