homepage

I'm using plistlib to process plist files produced by an iphone app. Somehow, the application is generating plist files with a absolute date value along the lines of `0000年12月30日T00:00:00Z`.
This is a valid date, and the apple plist libraries can handle this without issue. However, it causes a ValueError if you load a plist containing it.
Minimal example:
python file: 
```
import plistlib
test = plistlib.readPlist('./test.plist')
```
plist file: 
```
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Test</key>
	<date>0000年12月30日T00:00:00Z</date>
</dict>
</plist>
```
This fails on both python3 and python2, with the exact same error:
```
herp@mainnas:/media/Storage/Scripts/pFail$ python3 test.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "test.py", line 3, in <module>
 test = plistlib.readPlist('./test.plist')
 File "/usr/lib/python3.4/plistlib.py", line 164, in readPlist
 dict_type=_InternalDict)
 File "/usr/lib/python3.4/plistlib.py", line 995, in load
 return p.parse(fp)
 File "/usr/lib/python3.4/plistlib.py", line 325, in parse
 self.parser.ParseFile(fileobj)
 File "/usr/lib/python3.4/plistlib.py", line 337, in handle_end_element
 handler()
 File "/usr/lib/python3.4/plistlib.py", line 413, in end_date
 self.add_object(_date_from_string(self.get_data()))
 File "/usr/lib/python3.4/plistlib.py", line 291, in _date_from_string
 return datetime.datetime(*lst)
ValueError: year is out of range
herp@mainnas:/media/Storage/Scripts/pFail$ python test.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "test.py", line 3, in <module>
 test = plistlib.readPlist('./test.plist')
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/plistlib.py", line 78, in readPlist
 rootObject = p.parse(pathOrFile)
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/plistlib.py", line 406, in parse
 parser.ParseFile(fileobj)
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/plistlib.py", line 418, in handleEndElement
 handler()
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/plistlib.py", line 474, in end_date
 self.addObject(_dateFromString(self.getData()))
 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/plistlib.py", line 198, in _dateFromString
 return datetime.datetime(*lst)
ValueError: year is out of range
herp@mainnas:/media/Storage/Scripts/pFail$
```

Aaaand there is no markup processing. How do I edit my report?

(Currently, it is not possible to edit a particular message in an issue. You could add a replacement comment to the issue and ask that the older message be delete.)
This seems to be a problem date. As documented, plistlib converts plist dates to/from Python datetime.datetime objects. And, as is documented from datetime objects, the year field must be between 1 (MINYEAR) and 9999 (MAXYEAR). So, it would appear that dates with year 0 are not representable as datetime objects; it's not obvious to me how plistlib could handle a date like that without changing the API, i.e. returning something other than a datetime object or by changing the rules for datetime objects, which is very unlikely to happen.
https://docs.python.org/dev/library/plistlib.html
https://docs.python.org/dev/library/datetime.html#datetime.MINYEAR 

Another limitation is that on 32-bit platform it is impossible to load date before datetime.datetime(1901, 12, 13, 20, 45, 52) from binary plist.
>>> plistlib.loads(b'bplist003'+struct.pack('>d', -2**31 - (31 * 365 + 8) * 86400)+b'\x08\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x11')
datetime.datetime(1901, 12, 13, 20, 45, 52)
>>> plistlib.loads(b'bplist003'+struct.pack('>d', -2**31 - (31 * 365 + 8) * 86400 - 1)+b'\x08\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x11')
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 File "/home/serhiy/py/cpython/Lib/plistlib.py", line 1006, in loads
 fp, fmt=fmt, use_builtin_types=use_builtin_types, dict_type=dict_type)
 File "/home/serhiy/py/cpython/Lib/plistlib.py", line 997, in load
 return p.parse(fp)
 File "/home/serhiy/py/cpython/Lib/plistlib.py", line 623, in parse
 return self._read_object(self._object_offsets[top_object])
 File "/home/serhiy/py/cpython/Lib/plistlib.py", line 688, in _read_object
 return datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(f + (31 * 365 + 8) * 86400)
OverflowError: timestamp out of range for platform time_t
Can second example be loaded by Apple tools on 32-bit?

Related issue is issue10733. Not all plists produced by Apple's tools can be proceeded by plistlib.

An issue with out of range timestamps was resolved in issue26709.