title: how to compare strftime values
body: <p>I have two values created from strftime as below</p>
  
  <pre><code>TIMEFORMAT="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
  
  time1 = time.strftime(TIMEFORMAT)
  time2 = time.strftime(TIMEFORMAT)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>now the values of time1 and time 2 are like <code>"2013-11-22 04:03:56" "2013-11-22 01:03:56"</code></p>
  
  <p>The values are written by other script to file. And I am reading these values back from file and then comparing.</p>
  
  <p>I want to compare something like this</p>
  
  <pre><code>if time1 &gt; time2:
      # do etc. etc. 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How to compare these times? </p>