{"categories":[{"label":"Text Processing","url":"https://skillfed.io/packages/category/text-processing"}],"enrichment":{"capability":"Datefinder extracts date and time expressions from unstructured text and converts them into datetime objects or typed match objects with confidence and span information.","skillfed_tags":["date-extraction","nlp","text-parsing"],"use_cases":["Extract dates from email threads, support tickets, or conversation logs to organize or filter by date","Parse contract or legal document dates to identify key deadlines and effective dates","Find and normalize dates in scraped web content or mixed-format reports for data pipeline ingestion","Process relative date expressions in user input (e.g., \"due tomorrow\") anchored to a specific reference date","Migrate legacy date extraction code by using find_dates_legacy() for parity, then switching to the modern API"],"what_it_does":"Datefinder is a Python date parser designed to extract date and time expressions from unstructured text. It handles explicit calendar dates (e.g., \"January 4th, 2017\" or \"2024-11-03 18:00\"), relative expressions (\"tomorrow\", \"in 3 days\"), and multiple date formats in a single pass. The package provides two main APIs: a compatibility layer that returns datetime objects, and a modern typed API that returns match objects with kind, text span, confidence, and structured values.\n\nThe package is useful for processing emails, contracts, logs, scraped HTML, and other mixed-format documents where dates are embedded in natural language. It includes a command-line interface for shell pipelines and supports anchoring relative date parsing to a reference date. As of version 1.0.0, the default engine uses a v2 compatibility implementation backed by Rust, with the original engine available as a fallback.","worth_installing":"Yes, if you need to extract dates from unstructured text. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, and supports current Python versions. Install friction is moderate due to Rust compilation on unsupported platforms, but prebuilt wheels cover common targets. The MIT license is permissive. Consider it essential for document processing, log analysis, or data normalization tasks involving natural language dates."},"id":"datefinder","links":{"html":"https://skillfed.io/packages/datefinder","md":"https://skillfed.io/packages/datefinder.md","pypi":"https://pypi.org/project/datefinder/"},"maintenance":{"status":"active"},"meta":{"latest_release":"2026-03-25","license_spdx":null,"license_treatment":"permissive","name":"datefinder","python_support":"supports_current","summary":"Extract datetime objects from natural language text"},"popularity":{"monthly_downloads":4546158,"position":2284,"tier":"top_5000"},"security":{"n_vulnerabilities":0},"version":"1.0.0"}