Golang : Parse date string and convert to dd-mm-yyyy format

A reader enquired on how to use Golang to convert date string such as "28th nov 2016" or "nov 28 2016" to 28-11-2016

To accomplish this, we use the time.Parse function with a given layout that matches the input date string into Golang's time.Time type

The only thing that we need to watch out for is to sanitize the input date string from th, nd,st and rd

Here you go!

 package main

 import (
 "fmt"
 "strings"
 "time"
 )

 func main() {

 // test 1

 inputDate := "28 nov 2016"
 layOut := "2 Jan 2006"

 timeStamp, err := time.Parse(layOut, inputDate)

 fmt.Println("Test 1 date : ", inputDate)

 if err != nil {
 fmt.Println(err)
 } else {

 year, month, day := timeStamp.Date()
 fmt.Printf("Date : [%d]year : [%d]month : [%d]day \n", year, month, day)

 // mm-dd-yyyy
 fmt.Println("mm-dd-yyyy date format : ", timeStamp.Format("01-02-2006"))

 }

 // test 2

 inputDate = "November 28th 2016"

 fmt.Println("\n\nTest 2 date : ", inputDate)

 // need to remove th, nd, st and rd from inputDate string
 inputDate = strings.ToLower(inputDate)
 inputDate = strings.Replace(inputDate, "th", "", -1)
 inputDate = strings.Replace(inputDate, "nd", "", -1)
 inputDate = strings.Replace(inputDate, "st", "", -1)
 inputDate = strings.Replace(inputDate, "rd", "", -1)

 layOut = "January 2 2006"

 timeStamp, err = time.Parse(layOut, inputDate)

 if err != nil {
 fmt.Println(err)
 } else {
 year, month, day := timeStamp.Date()
 fmt.Printf("Date : [%d]year : [%d]month : [%d]day \n", year, month, day)

 // dd-mm-yyyy
 fmt.Println("dd-mm-yyyy date format : ", timeStamp.Format("02-01-2006"))
 }

 }

Output:

Test 1 date : 28 nov 2016

Date : [2016]year : [11]month : [28]day

mm-dd-yyyy date format : 11-28-2016

Test 2 date : November 28th 2016

Date : [2016]year : [11]month : [28]day

dd-mm-yyyy date format : 28-11-2016

References:

https://golang.org/pkg/time/#Parse

https://www.socketloop.com/tutorials/golang-convert-date-format-and-separator-yyyy-mm-dd-to-dd-mm-yyyy