# months abbreviated dictionary (created from a list)
mad = {'MAR': 3, 'FEB': 2, 'AUG': 8, 'SEP': 9, 
    'APR': 4, 'JUN': 6, 'JUL': 7, 'JAN': 1, 
    'MAY': 5, 'NOV': 11, 'DEC': 12, 'OCT': 10}
 
date = "25-DEC-1970"
date_list = date.split('-')
 
# note that the month abbreviation is at index 1
print date_list  # ['25', 'DEC', '1970']
 
# make sure case is consistent with dictionary, all upper case
month_abbrev = date_list[1].upper()
 
# now get the value from the dictionary (giving it the key)
month_number = mad[month_abbrev]
 
# test it ...
print date, "-->", month_number  # 25-DEC-1970 --> 12
 
# the other numbers ...
day_number = int(date_list[0])
year_number = int(date_list[2])
 
print day_number, month_number, year_number  # 25 12 1970

mytext = "this is my text I want to write to a file"
 
filename = 'test.txt'
 
# open the file for writing
fout = open( filename, 'w' )
# write text to file
fout.write(mytext)
# close the file
fout.close()
 
# read it back in to check if it has been written properly ...
fin = open(filename, 'r')
text = fin.read()
fin.close()
 
print '-'*70
print text
print '-'*70