import datetime import time def to_datetime(datetime_string, format='%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'): """Turn a date/time string into a datetime object.""" return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp( time.mktime(time.strptime(datetime_string, format))) def to_date(date_string, format='%Y-%m-%d'): """Turn a date string into a date object.""" return datetime.date.fromtimestamp( time.mktime(time.strptime(date_string, format))) # Or, as of Python 2.5: from datetime import datetime def to_datetime(datetime_string, format='%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'): """Turn a date/time string into a datetime object.""" return datetime.strptime(datetime_string, format) def to_date(date_string, format='%Y-%m-%d'): """Turn a date string into a date object.""" return to_datetime(date_string, format).date()