iso8601_to_datetime.py

def iso8601_to_datetime(iso_date):
    """Converts an ISO-8601 date string to a Python datetime.
    We ignore microseconds for the moment as datetime only takes milliseconds.
    
    Usage: >>> iso8601_to_datetime('2009-04-24T15:48:26,000000Z')
           datetime.datetime(2009, 04, 24, 15, 48, 26)
    """
    rx = re.compile(r'^(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})T(\d{2}):(\d{2}):(\d{2}),?(.*)$')
    matches = rx.match(iso_date)
    if matches:
        match_bits = [int(i) for i in matches.groups()[:6]]
        return datetime.datetime(*match_bits)
    return None