The tests for this feature but not the feature itself

seem to have been included in the merge into 3.x??

pycounter/helpers.py

@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 """Helper functions used by pycounter."""
 import calendar
 import datetime
+import re
+
+import pendulum
 
 
 def convert_covered(datestring):
@@ -15,8 +18,15 @@ def convert_covered(datestring):
     (Will also accept MM/DD/YYYY format, ISO 8601 timestamps, or existing
     datetime objects; these shouldn't be in COUNTER reports, but they
     do show up in real world data...)
+
+    Also accepts strings of the form 'Begin_Date=2019-01-01; End_Date=2019-12-31'
+    for better compatibility with some (broken) COUNTER 5 implementations.
     """
-    start_string, end_string = datestring.split(" to ")
+    try:
+        start_string, end_string = datestring.split(" to ")
+    except ValueError:
+        start_string, end_string = tuple(re.findall(r"\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}", datestring))
+
     start_date = convert_date_run(start_string)
     end_date = convert_date_run(end_string)
 
@@ -39,14 +49,18 @@ def convert_date_run(datestring):
     if isinstance(datestring, datetime.date):
         return datestring
 
-    try:
-        return datetime.datetime.strptime(datestring, "%Y-%m-%d").date()
-    except ValueError:
-        try:
-            return datetime.datetime.strptime(datestring, "%m/%d/%Y").date()
-        except ValueError:
-            # ISO 8601 without timezone
-            return datetime.datetime.strptime(datestring, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S").date()
+    return pendulum.parse(datestring, strict=False).date()
+
+
+def convert_date_column(datestring):
+    """
+    Convert human-readable month to date of first day of month.
+
+    :param datestring: the string to convert to a date. Format like "Jan-2014".
+
+    :return: datetime.date
+    """
+    return datetime.datetime.strptime(datestring.strip(), "%b-%Y").date()
 
 
 def is_first_last(period):