how to solve 'datetime.datetime' object is not iterable' TypeError

Question

I have a piece of code iterating though a number of files in an AWS S3 folder. I want to collect the last modified datetimestamps for all objects and be able to sort them in ascending or descending order. my code looks like this:

import boto3

s3 = boto3.resource('s3')
my_bucket = s3.Bucket('myS3bucket')

for my_bucket_object in my_bucket.objects.all():
    if my_bucket_object.key.startswith('inbox/'):
        changedate_dt = my_bucket_object.last_modified
        changedate_str = sorted(changedate_dt, reverse=False)
        print(changedate_str)

I am getting the error:

TypeError: 'datetime.datetime' object is not iterable

how can I solve this?

Answer 1

You need to be making a list of your datetime.datetime values, rather than simply trying to sort each individual datetime.datetime :

changedate_list = []

for my_bucket_object in my_bucket.objects.all():
    if my_bucket_object.key.startswith('inbox/'):
        changedate_list.append(my_bucket_object.last_modified)

You can then sort the list of datetimes and print it out (in isoformat if you like):

changedate_list.sort()
for changedate in changedate_list:
    print changedate.isoformat()