Error raise while log a TB

Hi, as i use in my python file

trackable = geocaching.get_trackable(x)
print(trackable.name, trackable.goal, trackable.description, trackable.location)
log = Log(type=LogType.discovered_it, text=logtext, visited=datetime.date.today())
tracking_code = x
trackable.post_log(log, tracking_code)

it raises an error like:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File ".../main.py", line 95, in <module>
    main()
  File ".../main.py", line 86, in main
    trackable.post_log(log, tracking_code)
  File "...\venv\lib\site-packages\pycaching\trackable.py", line 242, in post_log
    formatted_date = format_date(log.visited, date_format)
  File ...\venv\lib\site-packages\pycaching\util.py", line 91, in format_date
    return date.strftime(date_format)
ValueError: Invalid format string

Tested under:
Python 3.8.1 (tags/v3.8.1:1b293b6, Dec 18 2019, 22:39:24) [MSC v.1916 32 bit (Intel)]

i make a change to get it work in util.py i do:

def format_date(date, user_date_format):
    """Format a date according to user_date_format."""
    # parse user format
    date_format = user_date_format.lower()
    date_format = re.split("(\W+)", date_format)
    formats = {
        "dd": r'%d',
        "d": r'%-d',
        "mmm": r'%b',
        "mm": r'%m',
        "m": r'%-m',
        "yyyy": r'%Y',
        "yy": r'%y',
    }
    date_format = "".join((formats[c] if c in formats else c for c in date_format))
    if not type(date_format) == str:
        return date.strftime(date_format)
    else:
        return date_format

that works for me.
please excuse the long post, i am not familiar with this.

[FriedrichFroebel]

Thanks for reporting. I am not able to reproduce this problem and I do not think that your proposed fix should be applied as-is. (As far as I can see, the site redesign has not yet been affecting the TB log page in my case.)

As you have already modified the pycaching.util.format_date method: Could you please check what the content of user_date_format is by printing it during a quick test?

I could only report this problem under windows10 installed the latest version of python, the same code under Linux doesn't stops.
But now, yours please:
As i insert a print commad (see below) i get this print out:

User_date_format Type <class 'str'> and Content d.M.yyyy

--- code

def format_date(date, user_date_format):
    """Format a date according to user_date_format."""
    # insert a debugging print command
    print('User_date_format Type {} and Content {}'.format(type(user_date_format),user_date_format))
    # parse user format
    date_format = user_date_format.lower()
    date_format = re.split("(\W+)", date_format)
    formats = {
        "dd": r'%d',
        "d": r'%-d',
        "mmm": r'%b',
        "mm": r'%m',
        "m": r'%-m',
        "yyyy": r'%Y',
        "yy": r'%y',
    }
    date_format = "".join((formats[c] if c in formats else c for c in date_format))
    if not type(date_format) == str:
        return date.strftime(date_format)
    else:
        return date_format

---

and i guess it's another output under linux (which the same code doesn't raise an error)
Thanks for reply.

Oh, and may you want to know what the join command is doing with this ? I ad another line in front of my if/else statement.

if i do that:

    date_format = "".join((formats[c] if c in formats else c for c in date_format))
    # another output for debug.
    print('date_format Type {} and Content {}'.format(type(date_format),date_format))
    if not type(date_format) == str:

i got:
User_date_format Type <class 'str'> and Content d.M.yyyy
date_format Type <class 'str'> and Content %-d.%-m.%Y

[FriedrichFroebel]

This sounds like some problem regarding datetime on Windows systems with specific date formats shown on the geocaching website. According to https://strftime.org/ the - flag in front of a regular specifier is platform-dependent, so we should probably try to fix this problem.

As far as I can see, your fix is incorrect - the type of date_format should always be a string, so the first case of the if statement will never be executed. The else branch of the statement does not match the requirements of the format_date method as instead of formatting a given date, it returns a format string.

[FriedrichFroebel]

In your case, a correct fix would probably be to replace the return statement of the format_date method with the following snippet which provides some sort of custom implementation of the - flag in the case of an error:

    try:
        return date.strftime(date_format)
    except ValueError:
        date_format = date_format.replace("%-d", str(date.day))
        date_format = date_format.replace("%-m", str(date.month))
        return date.strftime(date_format)

[tomasbedrich]

@VoHe New release 4.0.1 is published with fix. Please try that and let us know.

Done, fix works as expected. I checked it under Windows10 / Python 3.7 and 3.8 and Linux (Ubuntu 19.10... Pyhton 3.7).
Thanks for this.