I've been encountering various date formats like "Jan 02, 2025," "02/01/2025," and ISO date strings. I'm considering using dateutil.parser with a strict fallback approach. What's a simple and beginner-friendly method to standardize dates reliably?
2 Answers
A solid approach is to store dates as Unix Time, which counts the seconds since January 1, 1970. Most date libraries are built to handle this format easily, so you can keep it simple and consistent!
Definitely try to use ISO 8601 when you can! It’s a widely accepted format and helps avoid confusion between different regional date formats.
I prefer RFC 3339. ISO 8601 can be pretty loose, which sometimes leads to issues. Just remember, avoid local formats unless you're displaying dates to users!