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My current method to do so is using a string replace, but perhaps I'll be missing some edge cases. The possible formatters I have are:

%d %b %Y %y %H %M %S %p %f %m %d %z %A
An example would be:
format.replace('%Y', 'yyyy')
And on and on...
                What do you want to convert? The occurences of the string '%Y' to the string 'yyyy' within a string '%Y ...'? You say you have multiple time formats. Can you give more examples?
– Felix
                Jan 10, 2019 at 2:00
                @Jab: Not OP, but I for example need this to convert my known pandas datetime formats (Python style) into PySpark datetime formats, which use java...
– Thomas
                Aug 28, 2019 at 16:45
One way would be to use the % format as a template and then provide a mapping, e.g.:
In []:
from string import Template
mapping = {'Y': 'yyyy', 'm': 'MM', 'd': 'dd', 'H': 'HH', 'M': 'mm', 'S': 'ss'}
Template("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S".replace('%', '$')).substitute(**mapping)
Out[]:
'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss'
Instead of doing str.replace() you can change the template delimiter by subclassing Template, e.g.:
In []:
class MyTemplate(Template):
    delimiter = '%'
MyTemplate("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S").substitute(**mapping)
Out[]:
'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss'
To know more about % format : https://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-strptime-behavior
                I've assumed the OP is trying to move from some python date format strings to java format strings (SimpleDataFormat()) and is looking to automate it.
– AChampion
                Jan 10, 2019 at 2:16
                @AChampion cool, thank you for the response and the suggestion of using a template over string replace.
– David542
                Jan 10, 2019 at 2:31
                @AChampion I've the exact same problem but the other way around. I need to move from yyyy to %Y. Any ideas?
– orak
                Apr 25, 2021 at 20:56
        
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