modules.datetime.date regared as str

[2rara]

Describe the bug

Hi, after I updated dbt 0.20.0 to 0.21.0, the following code started giving an error.
(modules.datetime.date.today()-modules.datetime.timedelta(days=modules.datetime.date.today().weekday())).strftime(“%Y-%m-%d”)
Error:
‘str object’ has no attribute ‘strftime’

I think that the part before .strftime should be datetime.date in Python, so I suspect that dbt is misinterpreting the type.

Steps To Reproduce

Create a dbt macro using the code above, like
{% set monday = (modules.datetime.date.today()-modules.datetime.timedelta(days=modules.datetime.date.today().weekday())).strftime("%Y-%m-%d") %}

Run dbt compile.

Expected behavior

No error.

Screenshots and log output

'str object' has no attribute 'strftime'

System information

Which database are you using dbt with?

• postgres
• redshift
• bigquery
• snowflake
• other (specify: ____________)

The output of dbt --version:

installed version: 0.21.0
   latest version: 0.21.0

Up to date!

Plugins:
  - bigquery: 0.21.0
  - snowflake: 0.21.0
  - redshift: 0.21.0
  - postgres: 0.21.0

The operating system you're using:
ProductName: macOS
ProductVersion: 11.6
BuildVersion: 20G165

The output of python --version:
Python 2.7.16

Additional context

I didn't get the error when I used dbt 0.20.0.

[jtcohen6]

@2rara Thanks for the detailed writeup. I haven't been able to reproduce the issue you're seeing:

-- models/my_models.sql
{% set monday = (modules.datetime.date.today()-modules.datetime.timedelta(days=modules.datetime.date.today().weekday())).strftime("%Y-%m-%d") %}

select '{{ monday }}' as today

-- target/compiled/<project_name>/models/my_models.sql


select '2021-10-11' as today

How did you install dbt? Which version of python3 are you using (python3 --version)?

[2rara]

Hi @jtcohen6 thank you for your quick check and response!
(I'm on Python 3.8.10.)

I was looking at the wrong culprit of the error, and my current conclusion is that this is not a bug.
To emulate my dbt and database setup, if you create a file like "datatype_test.sql" with the following code under models, and run dbt compile --models datatype_test, you'll get the error I got. I can avoid the error by replacing {{v.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")}} with {{v}}.

{% set today = modules.datetime.date.today() %}
{% set monday = modules.datetime.date.today()-modules.datetime.timedelta(days=modules.datetime.date.today().weekday()) %}
{% set date_list = [] %}
{% set _ = date_list.append(today.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")) %}
{% set _ = date_list.append(monday.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")) %}

    {%- for v in date_list -%}
        '{{v.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")}}'
    {%- endfor -%}

I cannot test this with dbt@0.20.0 at the moment, but if it runs through with it, it could be a bug, and the bug might be #3499.

[jtcohen6]

@2rara That looks right to me. You're adding strings to date_list (the output of .strftime("%Y-%m-%d")), so you cannot apply .strtime() again. Just {{v}} inside the final loop does the trick.