how to pass a variable to isodate in python?

Question

I'm getting the duration value from youtube's v3 api.

I then want to pass that value to isodate function that turns the iso format into seconds.

       ytContentDetails = requests.get("https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=contentDetails&id=%s&key=%s"%(ytID, ytAPIkey)).json()
       ytDUR = ytContentDetails['items'][0]['contentDetails']['duration']
       print ytDUR
       ytTime = isodate.parse_duration('%f') ytDUR

But I keep getting an error.

       ytTime = isodate.parse_duration('%r')% ytDUR
       File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/isodate/isoduration.py", line 99, in parse_duration
       raise ISO8601Error("Unable to parse duration string %r" % datestring)
       ISO8601Error: Unable to parse duration string '%f'

Where am I going wrong?

I've tried changing %f to different conversions, to no avail.

I think this is a clue...

       parse_duration:
       parses an ISO 8601 duration string into a timedelta or Duration object.

the ytDUR value outputs something like ....

       PT6M19S

Answer 1

Why not just ytTime = isodate.parse_duration(ytDUR)? It worked for me, i.e. isodate.parse_duration('PT6M19S').