+the timezone, so that it's compatible with normal datetime.datetime objects.
+
+For safety this can also handle inputs that are either timestamps, or datetimes
+"""
+
+ def handle_shorthands(input):
+ """recognize string like +5d or +3w or +2m as
+ 2 days, 3 weeks or 2 months from now"""
+ if input.startswith('+'):
+ match = re.match(r"([0-9]+)([dwm])", input[1:])
+ if match:
+ how_many = int(match.group(1))
+ what = match.group(2)
+ if what == 'd':
+ d = datetime.timedelta(days=how_many)
+ elif what == 'w':
+ d = datetime.timedelta(weeks=how_many)
+ elif what == 'm':
+ d = datetime.timedelta(weeks=4 * how_many)
+ return datetime.datetime.utcnow() + d
+
+ # prepare the input for the checks below by
+ # casting strings ('1327098335') to ints
+ if isinstance(input, StringType):
+ try:
+ input = int(input)
+ except ValueError:
+ try:
+ new_input = handle_shorthands(input)
+ if new_input is not None:
+ input = new_input
+ except:
+ import traceback
+ traceback.print_exc()
+
+ # here we go
+ if isinstance(input, datetime.datetime):
+ #logger.info ("argument to utcparse already a datetime - doing nothing")
+ return input
+ elif isinstance(input, StringType):
+ t = dateutil.parser.parse(input)
+ if t.utcoffset() is not None:
+ t = t.utcoffset() + t.replace(tzinfo=None)
+ return t
+ elif isinstance(input, (int, float, long)):
+ return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(input)
+ else:
+ logger.error("Unexpected type in utcparse [%s]" % type(input))
+
+
+def datetime_to_string(dt):
+ return datetime.datetime.strftime(dt, SFATIME_FORMAT)
+
+
+def datetime_to_utc(dt):
+ return time.gmtime(datetime_to_epoch(dt))
+
+# see https://docs.python.org/2/library/time.html
+# all timestamps are in UTC so time.mktime() would be *wrong*
+
+
+def datetime_to_epoch(dt):
+ return int(calendar.timegm(dt.timetuple()))
+
+
+def add_datetime(input, days=0, hours=0, minutes=0, seconds=0):
+ """
+ Adjust the input date by the specified delta (in seconds).
+ """
+ dt = utcparse(input)
+ return dt + datetime.timedelta(days=days, hours=hours, minutes=minutes, seconds=seconds)
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+ # checking consistency
+ print(20 * 'X')
+ print(("Should be close to zero: %s" %
+ (datetime_to_epoch(datetime.datetime.utcnow()) - time.time())))
+ print(20 * 'X')
+ for input in [
+ '+2d',
+ '+3w',
+ '+2m',
+ 1401282977.575632,
+ 1401282977,
+ '1401282977',
+ '2014-05-28',
+ '2014-05-28T15:18',
+ '2014-05-28T15:18:30',
+ ]:
+ print("input=%20s -> parsed %s" %
+ (input, datetime_to_string(utcparse(input))))