def _strftime_through_cftimeindex(values, date_format):
    """Coerce an array of cftime-like values to a CFTimeIndex
    and access requested datetime component
    """
    from ..coding.cftimeindex import CFTimeIndex
    values_as_cftimeindex = CFTimeIndex(values.ravel())
    field_values = values_as_cftimeindex.strftime(date_format)
    return field_values.values.reshape(values.shape)
