title: How can I pass a date to a script in Python?
body: <p>I have a script for deleting images older than a date.</p>
  
  <p>Can I pass this date as an argument when I call to run the script?</p>
  
  <p>Example: This script <code>delete_images.py</code> deletes images older than a date (YYYY-MM-DD)</p>
  
  <pre><code>python delete_images.py 2010-12-31
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Script (works with a fixed date (xDate variable))</p>
  
  <pre><code>import os, glob, time
  
  root = '/home/master/files/' # one specific folder
  #root = 'D:\\Vacation\\*'          # or all the subfolders too
  # expiration date in the format YYYY-MM-DD
  
  ### I have to pass the date from the script ###
  xDate = '2010-12-31' 
  
  print '-'*50
  for folder in glob.glob(root):
      print folder
      # here .jpg image files, but could be .txt files or whatever
      for image in glob.glob(folder + '/*.jpg'):
          # retrieves the stats for the current jpeg image file
          # the tuple element at index 8 is the last-modified-date
          stats = os.stat(image)
          # put the two dates into matching format    
          lastmodDate = time.localtime(stats[8])
          expDate = time.strptime(xDate, '%Y-%m-%d')
          print image, time.strftime("%m/%d/%y", lastmodDate)
          # check if image-last-modified-date is outdated
          if  expDate &gt; lastmodDate:
              try:
                  print 'Removing', image, time.strftime("(older than %m/%d/%y)", expDate)
                  os.remove(image)  # commented out for testing
              except OSError:
                  print 'Could not remove', image 
  </code></pre>