python getting weekday from an input date.

Question

Hi

I'm trying to work on a homework problem where I have an input date in the format YYYY-MM-DD

I need to import a couple modules and create a function weekday where it splits up the date and returns the weekday.

So far I imported:

from time import *
from datetime import *

I need help in my weekday function where I must use a .split method

Create an object of the class datetime.date.
and use strftime to return the day of the week in full text.

Can anyone help me get started on how to implement these functions and modules properly?

Answer 1

I'll let others jump on the details, but you should almost never do a "from <...> import *". It's too easy to clobber functions in the namespace, and it's really a pain to debug.

from datetime import datetime  ## yes there are datetime objects in the datetime package. 
import time  ## You probably don't need this you aren't asked for the current time/date.

Answer 2

Suppose s is your input string:

s = '2010-10-29'

At the prompt, try s.split('-'). What happens?

Create a date object:

d = datetime.date(2010, 10, 29)

Then run d.strftime('%B'). What happens? How would you get the weekday, instead?

You can fill in the rest. Look at the Python docs for more information. Python doc: time, datetime

Answer 3

it's two lines

import time
print time.strftime("%A", time.strptime('2010-10-29', "%Y-%m-%d"))

prints 'Friday'