Parsing crontab-style lines
Question: I need to parse a crontab-like schedule definition in Python (e.g. 00 3 * * *)
and get where this should have last run.

Is there a good (preferably small) library that parses these strings and
translates them to dates?


Answer: Perhaps the python package [croniter](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/croniter/)
suits your needs.

Usage example:

    
    
    >>> import croniter
    >>> import datetime
    >>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
    >>> cron = croniter.croniter('45 17 */2  * *', now)
    >>> cron.get_next(datetime.datetime)
    datetime.datetime(2011, 9, 14, 17, 45)
    >>> cron.get_next(datetime.datetime)
    datetime.datetime(2011, 9, 16, 17, 45)
    >>> cron.get_next(datetime.datetime)
    datetime.datetime(2011, 9, 18, 17, 45)
    

