import complete date string to mathematica

Question

Based on an example from here I try to parse dates from a table including the time, but it fails. This is the modified example:

Export["test.dat", {{"2010-05-19 22:23:43", 17}, {"2010-05-20 22:23:43", 20}, {"2010-05-21 22:23:43", 19}}, "FieldSeparators" -> " "];

Import["test.dat", "Table", "DateStringFormat" -> {"Year", "-", "Month", "-", "Day", " ", "Hour", ":", "Minute", ":", "Second"}]

Does anyone understand why it doesn't work in analogy to the other case?

thanks

Answer 1

A workaround:

imported = Import["test.dat", "Table"]

We get:

(* {{"2010-05-19 22:23:43", 17}, {"2010-05-20 22:23:43", 
    20}, {"2010-05-21 22:23:43", 19}} *)

You can then apply DateList to convert it to a date list:

MapAt[DateList, #, 1] & /@ imported

(* {{{2010, 5, 19, 22, 23, 43.}, 17}, {{2010, 5, 20, 22, 23, 43.}, 
    20}, {{2010, 5, 21, 22, 23, 43.}, 19}} *)