ValueError: time data does not match format ‘%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f’

Update: I’ve looked through your code and found some misstypes.
In addition, it looks like you didn’t add in the concatenation.

I have sorted both out.

Mistypes:

You wrote:

for k, line in enumerate(lines):
                if k > (int(header_line)):
                    data_pre = line.strip().split(',')
                    stDate = data_pre[0].replace("\"", "")
                    print stDate  # got 1998-04-18 16:48:36.76


                    dat_time = datetime.datetime.strptime(stDate,
                                                   '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
                    mic_sec = dat_time.microsecond
                    timcon = calendar.timegm(dat_time.timetuple())*1000000 + mic_sec

                    strDate = "\"" + strDate + "\""
                    # ^ This line is wrong
                    # It should say: 
                    # strDate = "\"" + stDate + "\""

                    print stDate # got "1998-04-18 16:48:36.76"
                    # ^ This line is wrong
                    # It should say:
                    # print strDate

Implementing the above changes, we can now add the ” + “.0″ ” addition to a sample of your code

(Try running this first, make sure you understand what it is doing, before moving on):

import time
import datetime
import calendar

A = "1998-04-18 16:48:36.76,0,38"
B = "1998-04-18 16:48:37,5,33"

# Run the Code for B

data_pre = B.strip().split(',')
print data_pre

stDate = data_pre[0].replace("\"", "")
print "stDate before: ", stDate  

### Addition of Addition of .0
# Here, we try to convert to datetime format using the format
# '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f'
try:
    dat_time = datetime.datetime.strptime(stDate,
                               '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')

# If that doesn't work, we add ".4" to the end of stDate
# (You can change this to ".0")
# We then retry to convert stDate into datetime format                                   
except:
    stDate = stDate + ".4"
    dat_time = datetime.datetime.strptime(stDate,
                               '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
    print "stDate after: ", stDate

###                                
print "dat_time: ", dat_time

mic_sec = dat_time.microsecond
print "mic_sec: ", mic_sec

timcon = calendar.timegm(dat_time.timetuple())*1000000 + mic_sec
print "timecon: ", timcon

strDate = "\"" + stDate + "\""
print "strDate: ", strDate 

Therefore, for an example:

A = "1998-04-18 16:48:36.76,0,38"
B = "1998-04-18 16:48:37,5,33"
# Note the difference  ^^

# Output for B:
['1998-04-18 16:48:37', '5', '33']
stDate before:  1998-04-18 16:48:37
stDate after:  1998-04-18 16:48:37.4
dat_time:  1998-04-18 16:48:37.400000
mic_sec:  400000
timecon:  892918117400000
strDate:  "1998-04-18 16:48:37.4"

# Output for A:
['1998-04-18 16:48:36.76', '0', '38']
stDate before:  1998-04-18 16:48:36.76
dat_time:  1998-04-18 16:48:36.760000
mic_sec:  760000
timecon:  892918116760000
strDate:  "1998-04-18 16:48:36.76"

Integrated Everything into your main loop. This is what you want overall:

for k, line in enumerate(lines):
                if k > (int(header_line)):
                    data_pre = line.strip().split(',')
                    stDate = data_pre[0].replace("\"", "")
                    print stDate  

                    try:
                        dat_time = datetime.datetime.strptime(stDate,
                               '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')                                  
                    except:
                        stDate = stDate + ".4"
                        dat_time = datetime.datetime.strptime(stDate,
                               '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')

                    mic_sec = dat_time.microsecond
                    timcon = calendar.timegm(dat_time.timetuple())*1000000 + mic_sec

                    strDate = "\"" + stDate + "\""
                    # ^ Changed this line
                    print strDate 
                    # ^ Changed this line

Original Answer:

You can’t append to a string.

One option would be to use A + B

A = "1998-04-18 16:48:36"
B = ".0"
C = A + B
C = "1998-04-18 16:48:36.0"

You can also use str.join:

D = "".join([A,B])
D = '1998-04-18 16:48:36.0'

For more info, see the answer to this question: Which is the preferred way to concatenate a string in Python?