AttributeError module 'datetime' has no attribute 'strptime'

AttributeError module 'datetime' has no attribute 'strptime' #

The error "AttributeError module 'datetime' has no attribute 'strptime'" occurs when we try to call the strptime method directly on the datetime module. To solve the error, use the following import import datetime and call the strptime method as datetime.datetime.strptime(...).

Here is an example of how the error occurs.

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import datetime

# ⛔️ AttributeError: module 'datetime' has no attribute 'strptime'
dt = datetime.strptime("21/11/22 09:30", "%d/%m/%y %H:%M")

print(dt)

The issue in the code sample is that we are trying to call the strptime method directly on the datetime module.

To solve the error, call the strptime method on the datetime class instead.

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import datetime

dt = datetime.datetime.strptime(
  "21/11/22 09:30",
  "%d/%m/%y %H:%M"
)

print(dt) # 👉️ 2022-11-21 09:30:00

Alternatively, you can change your import statement to import the datetime class from the datetime module to not have to type datetime.datetime which looks quite confusing.

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from datetime import datetime

dt = datetime.strptime("21/11/22 09:30", "%d/%m/%y %H:%M")

print(dt)  # 👉️ 2022-11-21 09:30:00

We imported the datetime class from the datetime module and called the strptime method on the class.

It is quite confusing that there is a class named datetime in the datetime module.

You can make your code a bit easier to read by using an alias in your import statement.

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# 👇️ alias datetime class to dt
from datetime import datetime as dt

result = dt.strptime("21/11/22 09:30", "%d/%m/%y %H:%M")

print(result)  # 👉️ 2022-11-21 09:30:00

We aliased the datetime class to dt, so you would call the strptime method as dt.strptime() instead of datetime.strptime().

The best way to start debugging the "AttributeError module 'datetime' has no attribute 'strptime'" is to call the dir() function passing it the imported module.

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import datetime

"""
[
  'MAXYEAR', 'MINYEAR', '__all__', '__builtins__', '__cached__',
 '__doc__', '__file__', '__loader__', '__name__', '__package__',
 '__spec__', 'date', 'datetime', 'datetime_CAPI', 'sys', 'time',
 'timedelta', 'timezone', 'tzinfo'
]
"""
print(dir(datetime))

If you pass a module object to the dir() function, it returns a list of names of the module's attributes.

We can see that the datetime module has no attribute named strptime, so it must be an attribute in one of the module's classes.

We can also see that the datetime module has an attribute datetime, which is what we used to successfully call the strptime() method.

If you import the datetime class from the datetime module and pass it to the dir() function, you will see the strptime method in the list of attributes.

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from datetime import datetime

# 👇️ [... 'strptime', ...]
print(dir(datetime))

If you got the error "AttributeError: partially initialized module 'datetime' has no attribute 'strptime' (most likely due to a circular import)", there is a file called datetime.py in your local codebase.

To solve the error, make sure to not use names of built-in or remote modules, e.g. datetime.py, for your local files.

Conclusion #

The error "AttributeError module 'datetime' has no attribute 'strptime'" occurs when we try to call the strptime method directly on the datetime module. To solve the error, use the following import import datetime and call the strptime method as datetime.datetime.strptime(...).