Formatting a date into yyyy/mm/dd

[emma.parsons]

I am creating a program which takes in fields for events, saves them to file and then loads & displays them on separate lines.

The 'date' field in my program should be in the format yyyy/mm/dd when it is entered. I have managed to implement this however my program still allows 1 number to be entered for the year when it should only allow 4 numbers for the year, 2 for the month and 2 for the day.

Please could someone show me how I could implement this in my program or how to improve the code I have, maybe by just entering the numbers e.g 20100315 rather than using the split with the commas.

import cPickle
 
def print_menu():
    print '1. Add an Event'
    print '2. Save Events to File'
    print '3. Load Events from File'
    print '4. Quit'
    print()
 
event_list = []
menu_choice = 0
print_menu()
start = 0
while True:
    menu_choice = input("Select Menu Item (1-4): ")
    if menu_choice == 1:
        try:
            print "Add Event"
            date = raw_input("Enter Date (yyyy,mm,dd): ")
            # Assuming that the user inputs this: yyyy,mm,dd
            date = date.split(',')
            if len(date[0]) == 2:
                date[0] = '20'+date[0]
            if len(date[1]) == 1:
                date[1] = '0'+date[1]
            if len(date[2]) == 1:
                date[2] = '0'+date[2]
            date = '/'.join(date)
            # if the format yyyy,mm,dd is not entered
        except IndexError:
            print "That was not in the format yyyy, mm, dd"
            start # restarts the loop
            continue
        time = raw_input("Time: ")
        title = raw_input("Title: ")
        desc = raw_input("Description: ")
        loc = raw_input("Location: ")
        attend = raw_input("Attendee(s): ")
        ui = "Date: " + date, "Time: " + time, "Title: " + title, "Description: " + desc, "Location: " + loc, "Attendee(s): " + attend + '\n'
        event_list.append(ui)
    elif menu_choice == 2:
        filename = raw_input("Filename to save: ")
        pickle_file = open(filename, "w")
        cPickle.dump(event_list, pickle_file)
        pickle_file.close()
    elif menu_choice == 3:
        try:
            filename = raw_input("Filename to load: ")
            pickle_file = open(filename, "r")
            events = cPickle.load(pickle_file)    # events is a list of events
            pickle_file.close()
            for event in events:                  # print each member of events
                print "Events: %s" % '\t'.join(list(event))
        except IOError:
            print "No such file to load"
            start
            continue
    elif menu_choice == 4:
        break
    else:
        print_menu()
 
print "Goodbye"

This being the section containing the date:

if menu_choice == 1:
        try:
            print "Add Event"
            date = raw_input("Enter Date (yyyy,mm,dd): ")
            # Assuming that the user inputs this: yyyy,mm,dd
            date = date.split(',')
            if len(date[0]) == 2:
                date[0] = '20'+date[0]
            if len(date[1]) == 1:
                date[1] = '0'+date[1]
            if len(date[2]) == 1:
                date[2] = '0'+date[2]
            date = '/'.join(date)
            # if the format yyyy,mm,dd is not entered
        except IndexError:
            print "That was not in the format yyyy, mm, dd"
            start # restarts the loop
            continue
        time = raw_input("Time: ")
        title = raw_input("Title: ")
        desc = raw_input("Description: ")
        loc = raw_input("Location: ")
        attend = raw_input("Attendee(s): ")
        ui = "Date: " + date, "Time: " + time, "Title: " + title, "Description: " + desc, "Location: " + loc, "Attendee(s): " + attend + '\n'
        event_list.append(ui)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank You

[slate]

From your code it appears, that you want to allow the following formats:
yyyy,mm,dd
yy,mm,dd -> 20yy,mm,dd
yyyy,m,d-> yyyy,0m,0d

You either allow only strict format or face the consequences...

import datetime
def event():
    ''' ask user a date and returns it in a yyyy/mm/dd format
        User input format: year,month,day as numbers. 
        Year has four digits or two digits assuming 20 as century.
        Must be a valid calendar day after Christ
    '''

    print "Add Event"
    dateinp = raw_input("Enter Date (yyyy,mm,dd): ")
    date = dateinp.split(',')
    if len(date)!=3 or len(date[0]) not in (2,4):
        print("invalid date")
        return None
    if len(date[0]) == 2:
        date[0] = '20'+date[0]
    date[1] = date[1].rjust(2,"0")
    date[2] = date[2].rjust(2,"0")
    try:
        d=datetime.date(*map(int,date))
    except ValueError:
        print("invalid date")
        return None
    date = '/'.join(date)
    return date

print event()

[emma.parsons]

That seems to work how I want it to but when I put it into my program it doesn't. I have modified your code slightly so it fits in with mine but maybe I have done this wrong?

Here is the code:

if menu_choice == 1:
        print "Add Event"
        dateinp = raw_input("Enter Date (yyyy,mm,dd): ")
        date = dateinp.split(',')
        if len(date)!=3 or len(date[0]) not in (2,4):
            print("invalid date")
            start # restarts the loop
            continue
        if len(date[0]) == 2:
            date[0] = '20'+date[0]
        date[1] = date[1].rjust(2,"0")
        date[2] = date[2].rjust(2,"0")
        try:
            d=datetime.date(*map(int,date))
        except ValueError:
            print("invalid date")
            start # restarts the loop
            continue
        date = '/'.join(date)
        time = raw_input("Time: ")
        title = raw_input("Title: ")
        desc = raw_input("Description: ")
        loc = raw_input("Location: ")
        attend = raw_input("Attendee(s): ")
        ui = "Date: " + date, "Time: " + time, "Title: " + title, "Description: " + desc, "Location: " + loc, "Attendee(s): " + attend + '\n'
        event_list.append(ui)

If I enter '20100315' it displays invalid but this should be valid. Is it something I'm doing wrong?

[hondros]

You're still using .split(',') for commas. Therefore, anything you type without commas won't work. If you want it without commas, try doing this:

date = '20100315'
year = date[0:4]
month = date[4:6]
day = date[6:8]

Perhaps try to implement this into your code.

[slate]

I thought the line
"Enter Date (yyyy,mm,dd): ")
means, that the user have to enter the date comma separated.

[hondros]

No no. That's the code I showed her earlier. I guess now she's wanting to have it without commas :/ I don't know

[snippsat]

For this regular expression can be to help.
This funtion will only return correct date format in | yyyy-mm-dd | or | yyyy/mm/dd |

import re

def foo():
    while True:
        print 'use format | yyyy-mm-dd |'
        date_input = raw_input("Enter date: ")        
        if re.match(r"(?:(19|20)[0-9]{2}[- /.](0[1-9]|1[012])[- /.](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01]))\Z", date_input):
            print 'Match'
            return date_input       
        else:
            print 'No match,try again'  	

print foo()

'''-->Out
use format | yyyy-mm-dd |
Enter date: 2000-13-25
No match,try again
use format | yyyy-mm-dd |
Enter date: 2000-12-25
Match
2000-12-25
'''

[emma.parsons]

I am unsure as to the best way of formatting the date. I am very confused as this is still all very new to me.

I have recently decided it would be best if the user just entered yyyymmdd and the program to add in the '/' but I am very confused with all of the code.

Sorry to confuse you all.

[snippsat]

There is no confusion about how my function work.
It will return a correct date format in yyyymmdd an nothing else.

I know regular expression is not easy to learn and can be confusing.
The other way is to check every number with range function or a tuple version.
Look at this post here you see how to check that numbers are correct without regular expression.
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread265942.html

You can look a datetime module and see if it have a check for date format.
http://docs.python.org/library/datetime.html