Toolbox: Compare dates as string in Python

Have you encountered a situation when you must compare two dates written as strings? For example:

"2022-01-01" < "2022-01-02"

This is a common problem with web and mobile app development, where dates are stored as strings. The best example of this behavior is Amazon’s DynamoDB. How to compare dates as strings? It can be done with a relatively simple function:

from datetime import datetime


def compare_str_dates(past_time: str, future_time: str, length=10, format='%Y-%m-%d') -> bool:
    """
    Function compares two dates written as strings.

    Parameters
    ----------
    past_time : str
        An expected past date as a string.

    future_time : str
        An expected future date as a string.

    length : int, default=10
        The length of a string with date characters.

    format : str, default='%Y-%m-%d'
        The format of a date.

    Returns
    -------
    : bool
        ``True`` if the future date is in future in comparison to the past date.
    """
    past_time = past_time[:length]
    future_time = future_time[:length]
    past = datetime.strptime(past_time, format)
    future = datetime.strptime(future_time, format)

    if future > past:
        return True
    return False

An example:

PAST = "2022-01-01"
FUTURE = "2022-01-02 22:01:00"

comparison = compare_str_dates(PAST, FUTURE)
print(comparison)

>> True