How it works...

The basic working of this is to isolate each of the elements and then parse them in to the proper type. The first step is to split the full log into smaller parts. The - string is a good divider, as it splits it into four parts—a timestamp one, one with just the word SALE, the product, and the price.

In the case of the timestamp, we need to isolate the ISO format, which is in brackets in the log. That's why it's stripped off the brackets. We use the delorean module (introduced earlier) to parse it in to a datetime object.

The word SALE is ignored. There's no relevant information there.

To isolate the product ID, we split the product part at the colon. Then, we parse the last element as an integer:

>>> product_string.split(':')
['PRODUCT', ' 1345']
>>> int(' 1345')
1345

To divide the price, we use the dollar sign as a separator, and parse it as a Decimal character:

>>> price_string.split('$')
['PRICE: ', '09.99']
>>> Decimal('09.99')
Decimal('9.99')

As described in the next section, do not parse this value into a float type.