How to check if date is in a list of date strings?

Question

This will always print false. How can I check if the date is in the array and print the proper thing? ``` dates = [ "2012-09-03", "2012-10-08", "2012-10-09", "2012-11-12", # .. more values snipped for brevity "2013-04-19", "2013-05-27", ] if date.today() in dates: print "true" elif date.today() not in dates: print "false" ```

Accepted Answer

You are comparing strings with python `datetime.date` objects; you need to convert the date object to a string for the comparison, using the `.strftime()` method:

```
today = date.today().strftime('%Y-%m-%d')
print today in dates # Will print "True" or "False"
```

To illustrate this further:

```
>>> from datetime import date
>>> date.today()
datetime.date(2012, 8, 28)
>>> date.today() == '2012-08-28'
False
>>> date.today().strftime('%Y-%m-%d') == '2012-08-28'
True
```

Alternatively, you can use the `.isoformat()` method, which uses the exact same output format:

```
>>> date.today().isoformat()
'2012-08-28'
```

How to check if date is in a list of date strings?

Solution

Problem