Convert Time Field

Question

This tool seems very strait forward but is causing issues when put into python. Works fine in ArcMap and I get the expected results.

My Input Time Field(Text Field) looks like:
2014-02-01 02:11 AM

inputTimeField = "Incident_Date___Time"
inputTimeFormat = "1033;yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm tt"
outputDateField = "IncDateTime"                       
arcpy.ConvertTimeField_management("myFGDB",inputTimeField,inputTimeFormat,outputDateField)
arcpy.DeleteField_management(blot,"DateTime")

After the tool is run the IncDateTime Field comes back as:
1/1/2001

Am I missing something here?

2-7-2014 7-51-46 AM.png

TimothyElliott · Answer

Just a word of warning In a file geodatabase the date and times are all stored as unicode strings, and you need to specify that when manipulating them with Python.  time_value.encode('utf-8'), "%d/%m/%Y %I:%M:%S %p")

David_JAnderson · Answer

I would suggest looking at the python datetime module.  It will do anything you can think of for manipulating date and time values.

jskinner · Answer

Hi Adam,

A good trick to get the syntax correct is to run the tool in ArcMap, then open the Results window (Geoprocessing menu > Results).  Right-click on the completed tool > Copy As Python Snippet.  You can then paste this into your script.