Get min and max dates

Thu Dec 8 14:49:03 EST 2016

DFS wrote:
> ....
> Not wanting to use any date parsing libraries,
> ....

 If you happen reconsider date parsing libraries 
 the strptime function from the datetime module
 might be useful ....
#!/usr/bin/env python3
from datetime import datetime
dates = [ '10-Mar-1998' ,
 '20-Aug-1997' ,
 '06-Sep-2009' ,
 '23-Jan-2010' ,
 '12-Feb-2010' ,
 '05-Nov-2010' ,
 '03-Sep-2009' ,
 '07-Nov-2014' ,
 '08-Mar-2013' ]
dict_dates = { }
print( )
for this_date in dates :
 dt = datetime.strptime( this_date , '%d-%b-%Y' )
 sd = dt.strftime( '%Y-%m-%d' )
 print( ' {0} .... {1}'.format( this_date , sd ) )
 dict_dates[ sd ] = this_date
min_date = min( dict_dates.keys() )
max_date = max( dict_dates.keys() )
print( '\n {0} .... {1} min'.format( dict_dates[ min_date ] , min_date ) )
print( '\n {0} .... {1} max'.format( dict_dates[ max_date ] , max_date ) )
-- 
Stanley C. Kitching
Human Being
Phoenix, Arizona