Dateparser based detctor for all dates in a string - untested

fuzzy_date_detector.py

import dateparser

def detect_date(line=""):
    """Detect multiple, multi language date and datetime entries in a given string.

    @param type: String to detect occuring_dates in, ideally a single line.
    @type type: String
    @return: Returns the list of found DateTime objects or None
    @rtype: List or None
    """

    # For a start, split the string, remove , and ; to get rid of edge cases
    # and be able to manipulate the data word by word
    splitted_line=line.replace(",","").replace(";","").split()

    occuring_dates=[]
    broken=False
    i=0
    j=len(splitted_line)+1

    while i<len(splitted_line)-1:
        while j>=0:
            #Generate a candidate combination of words
            section=" ".join(splitted_line[i:j])

            try:
                #If the input string is really not vaild, dateparser will raise an exception.
                date=dateparser.parse(section)
                if date==None:
                    #If dateparser returns with None, raise an exception.
                    raise Exception("No date could be parsed.")
                else:
                    #If we found something, just store it.
                    occuring_dates.append(date)

            except:
                #Nothing has been found, go ahead...
                j-=1
            else:
                #We have found something, hopefully
                if date:
                    #Update the original list, remove everything "covered" by what we found.
                    #This is the way to get rid of duplicates from parsing parts
                    # of the same datetime many times.
                    splitted_line=splitted_line[j+1:]
                    i=0
                    broken=True
                break

        j=len(splitted_line)+1
        if not broken:
            i+=1

    #This is a "detector", so give None if nothing is found, so as to fit in logical operations.
    if occuring_dates==[]:
        occuring_dates=None

    return occuring_dates

if __name__ == '__main__':

    #English dummy example
    line="aaa Sat, 16 Jul 2016 06:09:12 +0000 and Sat, 17 Aug 2015 09:11:15 +0100 aaa and 2 days ago aaaaa"
    results=detect_date(line)
    for r in results:
        print(r)