Question

How would you validate a date string in Python?

Answer 1

To validate a date string in Python, the datetime module can be used. This module has a method called strptime() which is used to convert a string into a datetime object. If the string is not a valid date, this method will raise a ValueError exception.

Here’s an example of how you could use it:

from datetime import datetime

def validate_date(date_string):

try:

datetime.strptime(date_string, '%Y-%m-%d')

return True

except ValueError:

return False

In this code, ‘%Y-%m-%d’ is the format for the date. It means that the date should be in the form ‘YYYY-MM-DD’. If the date_string does not match this format, strptime() will raise a ValueError and the function will return False. Otherwise, it returns True indicating the date_string is valid.