Figure out month number from month abbrievation

[Bill]

Hello --
I'm parsing the output of the finger command, and was wondering
something...If I'm given a month abbrievation (such as "Jan"), what's
the best way to figure out the month number? I see that there's
something called "month_abbr" in the calendar module. However, when I
try to do calendar.month_abbr.index("Jan"), I get "_localized_month
instance has no attribute 'index'." So it seems that month_abbr isn't
a regular list. I'm currently doing it this way:

def month_number(monthabbr):
"""Return the month number for monthabbr; e.g. "Jan" -> 1."""
for index, day in enumerate(calendar.month_abbr):
if day == monthabbr:
return index

which works well enough but isn't very clever. I'm pretty new to
Python; what am I missing here?
Thanks -- Bill.

 

[Fredrik Lundh]

I'm parsing the output of the finger command, and was wondering
something...If I'm given a month abbrievation (such as "Jan"), what's
the best way to figure out the month number? I see that there's
something called "month_abbr" in the calendar module. However, when I
try to do calendar.month_abbr.index("Jan"), I get "_localized_month
instance has no attribute 'index'." So it seems that month_abbr isn't
a regular list. I'm currently doing it this way:

def month_number(monthabbr):
"""Return the month number for monthabbr; e.g. "Jan" -> 1."""
for index, day in enumerate(calendar.month_abbr):
if day == monthabbr:
return index

which works well enough but isn't very clever. I'm pretty new to
Python; what am I missing here?

a couple of things, I think.

.... first, you can use list(seq) to convert any sequence to a list object,
so you could do

return list(calendar.month_abbr).index(monthabbr)

if you prefer to do things in one line.


.... but it also looks as if the meaning of the word "localized" isn't clear to
you; if you changed the locale, those names will be translated:
['', 'jan', 'feb', 'mar', 'apr', 'maj', 'jun', 'jul', 'aug', 'sep', 'okt', 'nov', 'dec']

which will cause your finger program to break...

.... and I'm quite sure that you could have written down the abbreviations
in far less time than it took you to compose that mail ;-)

MONTHS = ['',
'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun',
'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec'
]

month_number = MONTHS.index

</F>

 

[Azolex]

Hello --
I'm parsing the output of the finger command, and was wondering
something...If I'm given a month abbrievation (such as "Jan"), what's
the best way to figure out the month number?

I see that there's
something called "month_abbr" in the calendar module. However, when I
try to do calendar.month_abbr.index("Jan"), I get "_localized_month
instance has no attribute 'index'." So it seems that month_abbr isn't
a regular list. I'm currently doing it this way:

def month_number(monthabbr):
"""Return the month number for monthabbr; e.g. "Jan" -> 1."""
for index, day in enumerate(calendar.month_abbr):
if day == monthabbr:
return index

which works well enough but isn't very clever. I'm pretty new to
Python; what am I missing here?
Thanks -- Bill.

well, you can define the equivalent of your function with

month_number = list(calendar.month_abbr).index

or else

"! Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec".split().index

 

[Christos Georgiou]

Hello --
I'm parsing the output of the finger command, and was wondering
something...If I'm given a month abbrievation (such as "Jan"), what's
the best way to figure out the month number?

Try

import time
help(time.strftime)

and then this *might* work for you:

month_as_string= "Jan"
time.strptime(month_as_string, "%b").tm_mon

"Localization" (as Fredrik also suggested) is the reason for the *might* in
my previous sentence.

 

[John Salerno]

def month_number(monthabbr):
"""Return the month number for monthabbr; e.g. "Jan" -> 1."""
for index, day in enumerate(calendar.month_abbr):
if day == monthabbr:
return index

which works well enough but isn't very clever. I'm pretty new to
Python; what am I missing here?
Thanks -- Bill.

I'm curious, does that really work, or is there a problem with the first
index being 0? Or is that avoided somehow?

 

[John Machin]

I'm curious, does that really work, or is there a problem with the first
index being 0? Or is that avoided somehow?

Yes, No, Yes.

You can answer such questions yourself very easily, e.g. in this case:
['', 'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep',
'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec']

 

[Azolex]

I'm curious, does that really work, or is there a problem with the first
index being 0? Or is that avoided somehow?

you don't have a python shell always at hand for such cases of curiosity ?

('', 'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep',
'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec')

 

[John Salerno]

You can answer such questions yourself very easily, e.g. in this case:
['', 'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep',
'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec']

Ah thanks. I did try it first, but I didn't know to cast it to a list,
so I was just getting the object.

 

[Fulvio]

Alle 04:41, giovedì 13 aprile 2006, Fredrik Lundh ha scritto:

but it also looks as if the meaning of the word "localized" isn't clear to
you; if you changed the locale, those names will be translated

Mine behave strangely. Linux localized for Italian, but Python (or its
calander is in english)

??
F

 

[Fredrik Lundh]

Mine behave strangely. Linux localized for Italian, but Python (or its
calander is in english)

Python defaults to the C locale, which is a minimal english locale. To change this,
you have to tell the locale module
['', 'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec']
['', 'jan', 'feb', 'mar', 'apr', 'maj', 'jun', 'jul', 'aug', 'sep', 'okt', 'nov', 'dec']
['', 'gen', 'feb', 'mar', 'apr', 'mag', 'giu', 'lug', 'ago', 'set', 'ott', 'nov', 'dic']

The point here is that this is a global setting; once you (or someone using your code)
change the locale, all locale dependent code changes behaviour.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝÞ

</F>

 

[Fulvio]

Alle 20:16, giovedì 13 aprile 2006, Fredrik Lundh ha scritto:

'it_IT'

Thank you
Great & kind explanation

F