Example 1: Using datetime module
from datetime import datetime
my_date_string = "Mar 11 2011 11:31AM"
datetime_object = datetime.strptime(my_date_string, '%b %d %Y %I:%M%p')
print(type(datetime_object))
print(datetime_object)
Output
<class 'datetime.datetime'> 2011-03-11 11:31:00
Using strptime(), date and time in string format can be converted to datetime type. The first parameter is the string and the second is the date time format specifier.
One advantage of converting to date format is one can select the month or date or time individually.
If you want to learn more about the directives and strptime(), please go to Python strptime() - string to datetime object.
Example 2: Using dateutil module
from dateutil import parser
date_time = parser.parse("Mar 11 2011 11:31AM")
print(date_time)
print(type(date_time))
Output
2011-03-11 11:31:00 <class 'datetime.datetime'>
Using dateutil module, parse() can be used to convert a string into date time format. The only parameter used is the string.