Exam Time Sorting Script

Overview

This Python script is designed to read exam date information from a text file, parse the dates in various formats, and then sort the exams by date and time. The sorted exam data is then written back to a file. This utility is particularly useful for organizing exam schedules that are listed in non-standard or mixed date formats.

Features

• Date Parsing: Supports a wide range of date formats including YYYY-MM-DD, DD/MM/YYYY, and formats with time stamps.
• Sorting: Exams are sorted chronologically based on their start times.
• Flexibility: The script can handle different year assumptions for dates that only include month and day.

Requirements

• Python 3.6 or higher
• python-dateutil package

To install the required package, run:

pip install python-dateutil

Files

• script.py: Contains the main script to parse, sort, and write the exam data.
• ori_exam_data.txt: Example input file containing unsorted exam dates.
• exam_data.txt: Output file with sorted exam dates.

Usage

1. Ensure that the source file (ori_exam_data.txt) is in the same directory as the script, or provide the path to the source file.
2. Run the script using the following command:

   python script.py

3. Check the output in the exam_data.txt file.

Functions

parse_exam_data(line, default_year=datetime.now().year)

Parses a line of text to extract the date and time of the exam.

Parameters:

• line: A string containing a line from the input file.
• default_year: The default year to assume for dates that do not include a year.

Returns:

• A tuple containing the parsed datetime object and the revised line with the formatted date prepended.

read_and_sort_exams(filename)

Reads the exam data from a file, parses it, and sorts it by date.

Parameters:

• filename: The name of the file to read from.

Returns:

• A list of strings, each containing a sorted line from the input file.

write_sorted_exams(filename, sorted_exams)

Writes the sorted exam data back to a file.

Parameters:

• filename: The output file name.
• sorted_exams: A list of sorted exam strings to be written to the file.

Example

Given a file named ori_exam_data.txt with the following contents:

2023-04-15 09:00 Exam A
15/04/2023 Exam B
April 13, 2023, 14:00 Exam C

After running the script, the exam_data.txt will contain:

2023-04-13 14:00:00 April 13, 2023, 14:00 Exam C
2023-04-15 09:00:00 2023-04-15 09:00 Exam A
2023-04-15 00:00:00 15/04/2023 Exam B

Note

This script assumes that the input dates are valid and in a recognizable format based on the defined patterns. In case of unrecognized formats, the original line is returned with no date sorting applied.