xmlrpclib date times and a trailing Z

[Travis Parks]

I am trying to connect to Marchex's a call tracking software using
xmlrpclib. I was able to get some code working, but I ran into a
problem dealing with transfering datetimes.

When I construct a xmlrpclib.ServerProxy, I am setting the
use_datetime flag to indicate that I want to automatically convert
back and forth between date times in the datetime library.

I have a working version that doesn't use this flag, and I have to
convert from the xmlrpclib.DateTime type to the datetime.datetime type
manually, via string parsing.

The thing is, Marchex's API returns date's with a trailing Z, after
the time component. I did some research and this is supposed to be an
indicator that UTC was used. However, it doesn't seem like the
xmlrpclib likes it very much.

It looks like it is using this code internally: time.strptime(data, "%Y
%m%dT%H:%M:%S")

This code doesn't look like it handles time zones at all. I guess, is
there a way to tell xmlrpclib to include time zones when parsing date
times?

Thanks,
Travis Parks

 

[Travis Parks]

I am trying to connect to Marchex's a call tracking software using
xmlrpclib. I was able to get some code working, but I ran into a
problem dealing with transfering datetimes.

When I construct a xmlrpclib.ServerProxy, I am setting the
use_datetime flag to indicate that I want to automatically convert
back and forth between date times in the datetime library.

I have a working version that doesn't use this flag, and I have to
convert from the xmlrpclib.DateTime type to the datetime.datetime type
manually, via string parsing.

The thing is, Marchex's API returns date's with a trailing Z, after
the time component. I did some research and this is supposed to be an
indicator that UTC was used. However, it doesn't seem like the
xmlrpclib likes it very much.

It looks like it is using this code internally: time.strptime(data, "%Y
%m%dT%H:%M:%S")

This code doesn't look like it handles time zones at all. I guess, is
there a way to tell xmlrpclib to include time zones when parsing date
times?

Thanks,
Travis Parks

I did some chatting on IRC and it seems that the date/time format is
not very well defined in XML RPC specs. So, basically, Marchex is
using a format that the XML RPC library doesn't support. Strangely,
Marchex supports incoming dates with the format yyyyMMddThhmmss. It
just spits dates back out with yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ssZ. The ISO8601
standard seems to be used a lot, so it is surprising the library
doesn't try multiple formats, at least.

I find it strange that the library, in light of the fact that date
formats aren't standardized, doesn't provide the ability to configure
this. I also find it strange that the library doesn't incorporate
Basic Authentication using urllib2, but instead rolls its own method
of putting usernameassword@ before the netloc.

I wish Python's libraries acted more like an integrated framework than
just unrelated libraries. I suppose I am spoiled from years of working
with all-in-one frameworks managed by a single group. That is not the
way C/C++ works or how Linux works. The power generated by using a
conglomeration of unrelated libraries is indisputable, even if it can
be a productivity killer and just plain confusing.