Fix Python – How to construct a timedelta object from a simple string

Question 1

I’m writing a function that needs to parse string to a timedelta. The user must enter something like "32m" or "2h32m", or even "4:13" or "5hr34m56s"… Is there a library or something that has this sort of thing already implemented?

Question 2

For the first format (5hr34m56s), you should parse using regular expressions

Here is re-based solution:

import re
from datetime import timedelta


regex = re.compile(r'((?P<hours>\d+?)hr)?((?P<minutes>\d+?)m)?((?P<seconds>\d+?)s)?')


def parse_time(time_str):
    parts = regex.match(time_str)
    if not parts:
        return
    parts = parts.groupdict()
    time_params = {}
    for name, param in parts.items():
        if param:
            time_params[name] = int(param)
    return timedelta(**time_params)


>>> from parse_time import parse_time
>>> parse_time('12hr')
datetime.timedelta(0, 43200)
>>> parse_time('12hr5m10s')
datetime.timedelta(0, 43510)
>>> parse_time('12hr10s')
datetime.timedelta(0, 43210)
>>> parse_time('10s')
datetime.timedelta(0, 10)
>>>

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