How would I parse a time string to seconds in python?

Here are some examples of what the time strings would look like:

parse_time_string("20s") # 20
parse_time_string("30sec") # 30
parse_time_string("3m") # 180
parse_time_string("2min") # 120
parse_time_string("5h") # 18000
parse_time_string("1d") # 86400

>Solution :

A simple approach using a regexp to split the string to the number and unit parts, and a bit of multiplication:

import re

multipliers = {
    "s": 1,
    "sec": 1,
    "m": 60,
    "min": 60,
    "h": 60 * 60,
    "d": 86400,
}


def parse_time_string(param):
    value, unit = re.match(r"^(\d+)([a-z]+)$", param).groups()
    return int(value) * multipliers[unit]


for example in ("20s", "30sec", "3m", "2min", "5h", "1d"):
    print(example, parse_time_string(example))

20s 20
30sec 30
3m 180
2min 120
5h 18000
1d 86400